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FRUIT AND BREAD. 

A 

SCIENTIFIC DIET. 



y BY 

GUSTAV SCHLICKEYSEN. 



Translated from the German, 

BY 

M. L. HOLBROOK, M.D., 

EDITOR OF THE "HERALD OP HEALTH," AUTHOR OP "PARTURITION 

"WITHOUT PAIN," "EATING! FOR STRENGTH," 

"LIVER COMPLAINT," ETC. 

WITH AN APPENDIX. 
ILLUSTRATED. 



X 



NEW YORK : 

M. L. HOLBROOK & COMPANY. 













A 



h>* 






COPYRIGHT, 

M. L. HOLBROOK. 

1877. 



Charles P. Somerby, 

Printer, 
139 Eighth Street, N T. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PART I. 

Page. 

The Anthropological Argument 7 

PART II. • 
The Physiological Argument 1C7 

PART III. 

The Dietetic Argument 174 

German and English Works quoted by the 

Author 209 

APPENDIX. 

Dr. Jackson's Letter 211 

Napier's Cure for Intemperance 218 

Index 225 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
Flgai . Page. 

1. Teeth of the Horse 19 

•J. Teeth of the Gorilla 20 

3. Teeth of the Hare 21 

4. Teeth of the Wolf 2:} 

5. Teeth of the Shrew-mouse 2."> 

0. Teeth of the Swine 20 

7. T( i Lh Of -Man (front view) 27 

8. Teeth of Man (side view) 27 



IV TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

9. Eye-teeth of old Gorilla (natural size) 28 

10. Eye-teeth of young Gorilla (natural size) 29 

11. Eye-teeth of Man (natural size) .... 29 

12. Eye-teeth of Tiger (natural size) 30 

13. Stomach of Hyena 34 

14. Stomach of Lion 34 

15. Stomach of Sheep 35 

16. Stomach of Man 36 

17. Ideal Section of the Non-deciduate Placenta 

of the Herbivora 50 

18. Ideal Section of the Zonary Deciduate Pla- 

centa of the Carnivora 51 

19. Ideal Section of the Discoidal Deciduate 

Placenta of the Frugivora 52 



TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 

Op works on food and cookery there is no end, but 
in most cases their writers regard man as an omnivorous 
creature, deriving his sustenance from the animal, the 
vegetable, and even from the mineral kingdom. The 
author of the present work has departed from the dietetic 
helief and practice of centuries, and has undertaken to 
prove, upon the ground of physical organization and ori- 
ginal habit, that man is by nature frugivorous, using 
this word in its broadest sense, so as to include fruits, 
irrains and nuts, and that these are suflicient to maintain 
him in a perfect condition of physical and mental health. 

The arguments by which he maintains his theories are 
drawn from the accepted conclusions of modern science, 
and are presented with such originality and force as 
to entitle them to respectful consideration, even where 
his conclusions may seem too radical for adoption in the 
present state of society. His strikingly original treat- 
ment of the question of cookery will serve a useful pur- 
pose if it excites reflection concerning the present elabo- 
rate, costly and unnatural methods, regard ing which 
there is, unquestionably, cause for a very radical reform. 
The system of diet and methods of preparing food which 
he recommends have been verified in his own experience 
for many years, and have, besides, the high merit of ex- 
treme simplicity and naturalness. 

To the American reader the work will have an especial 
interest, as presenting in the main the views of a certain 
class of German health reformers, concerning whom 



VI TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

very little has hitherto been known in this country. It 
is a noteworthy fact that a parallel development of 
similar views has taken place in Germany, England and 
America having no direct connection, and yet reaching 
the same general conclusions, and it is hoped that the 
present translation may contribute in some degree to 
that international acquaintance and friendly exchange of 
thought which must essentially promote the common 
good. 

A considerable number of English and American 
works of this character have been translated into Ger- 
man, but this is, so far as I am aware, the first translation 
of the kind from German into English. There are, how- 
ever, a number of able German writers with whom it 
would be well for English and American hygienists to 
become better acquainted. The most prominent of these 
are Edward Baltzer, of Nordhausen, and Theodore Hahn, 
now of St. Gallen, in Switzerland. The cause of popular 
hygiene is also represented in Germany by a number of 
periodicals and by several influential societies. 

This translation, while adhering faithfully to the 
spirit and meaning of the author, is not altogether lit- 
eral, and at various points it has been somewhat elabo- 
rated by new material and by additional extracts from 
scientific authorities, especially from Darwin and Hux- 
ley. 

In the Appendix will be found two valuable papers, 
one by Dr. James C. Jackson, who is so widely known 
in the hygienic world, and one by Charles O. Groom 
Napier, F.G.S., which, it is hoped, may prove service- 
able to the victims of intemperance. 

I take pleasure in acknowledging here my indebted- 
ness, in the translation of this work, tolMr. Edwin F. 
Bacon, who has been an instructor of the German lan- 
guage in my family during the past three years, and 
whose zeal and faithfulness in his profession are deserv- 
ing of all praise. 

JSTbw York, 1877. M. L. H. 



FRUIT AND BREAD. 

PART I. 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 

No task more closely concerns tlie life and 
health of man than that of providing for 
his nourishment. The consciousness of this 
necessity lies deeply rooted, not only in man 
himself, but in every other living creature, 
and is the cause of that " stru^le for ex- 
istence " which prevails throughout the en- 
tire organic world. But experience has 
shown that it is by no means a matter of 
indifference how and wherewith this nour- 
ishment is effected, for upon the quality and 
quantity of our food depend in a marked 
degree our physical and moral condition. It 
is therefore highly important that we pos- 
sess a scientific foundation on which to estab- 



8 THE CHEMICAL THEORY OF DIET. 

lish a natural diet. The difficulty of estab- 
lishing this foundation is indicated in the words 
of the distinguished Prof. Virchow, of Ber- 
lin, who, in the year 1868, said: "A scien- 
tific system of diet is as yet impossible." 
It is therefore no wonder that there should 
be a great diversity of opinion upon this 
question, and that even the learned should 
pursue different courses in their efforts to 
bring it nearer to a solution. 

The Chemical Theory of Diet. — In mod- 
ern physiology there has long existed a 
tendency to infer the necessary elements of 
food from the chemical composition of the 
living body, and to establish an artificial di- 
etary upon this basis, but the study before 
us will show the fallacy of this method. As 
a foundation for a true theory, it is neces- 
sary first to consider the entire nature of the 
individual whose diet is to be determined. 

If, for example, we had to determine 
the proper diet of a horse, and should to 
this end consider only the daily consump- 
tion of the albuminous products of flesh, 
and of phosphate of lime and other ele- 
ments necessary to the formation of bone, 



THE ANATOMICAL THEORV. 9 

and should undertake to supply all these 
materials by means of albumen, flesh, salt, 
etc., we should very soon observe that an 
animal fed in this manner would perish, and 
it would thus become apparent that impor- 
tant considerations had been omitted. The 
same is true in the case of man. As long as 
we seek to establish a dietary for him up- 
on the exclusive basis of the consumption 
of chemical substances, we shall arrive at 
no just conclusion. 

The Anatomical Theory. — In order to 
correctly judge of the nature of an individ- 
ual, we can find no better starting-point 
than that of his natural capacity to provide, 
digest, and assimilate food, and this depends 
upon his bodily structure. Hence, to ascer- 
tain the natural nourishment of a hitherto 
unknown animal, we have only to bestow a 
critical look upon his body in order to 
know .what food is peculiar to him. 

The objective knowledge of any given 
condition evidently assumes a knowledge of 
its previous history and of the processes 
by which it has been evolved ; for as it is 
impossible rightly to estimate a thing in it- 



10 ANCIENT ZOOLOGICAL THEORIES. 

self, without comparing it with at least one 
other, so is it impossible fully to understand 
a living organism without knowing the his- 
tory of its development. In order, therefore, 
to a complete knowledge of the nature of 
man, we must undertake a somewhat com- 
plicated study. We have first to collect the 
necessary facts for a system of pure anat- 
omy, and from these, through comparative 
anatomy, to derive scientific conclusions. We 
shall then have to consider the development 
of man, and this is twofold : first, that of 
the individual, or Ontogeny, and, second, that 
of the race, or Philogeny. Upon this plan 
it will be easy for us from the present 
standpoint of science to accomplish our pro- 
posed task. 

The scientific method, and the conditions 
and results of nourishment, lead us to a 
comparative theory of dietetics. But such 
an attempt encounters to-day the same 
deadly opposition as did the theory of devel- 
opment previous to the appearance of Darwin's 
epoch-marking work, the " Origin of Species." 
Ancient Zoological Theories. — The early 
scientists constructed their zoological systems 



AXCIEST ZOOLOGICAL THEORIES. H 

according to purely external appearances, 
and often in a manner entirely arbitrary, 
and in the highest degree unscientific. In 
like manner the theory of dietetics remains 
■without a scientific basis, and even among 
the learned it is a proscribed subject. It 
cannot therefore surprise us if we encounter 
very antagonistic views concerning the influ- 
ence of different foods on the health and 
development of man. The dietetic physiolo- 
gists of the old school were too closely 
bound to the purely empirical views of 
their own and previous centuries, and pos- 
sessed too little scientific material, to admit 
of their establishing sound theories. 

The Darwinian Theory of Descent pre- 
sents the entire subject in a new light. 
Like a fertilizing rain upon the parched 
earth, this new system descends upon the 
domain of science, awakening a new life in 
every department of knowledge, and involv- 
ing therewith a bitter controversy with de- 
caying forms. The year 1860 especially 
marks with us the dawn of this new epoch. 
Since then there has appeared a new liter- 
ature, in which the discussion continually 



12 ANCIENT ZOOLOGICAL THEORIES. 

turns upon the truth and possibility of the 
theories presented by Darwin, and since 
supported also by Vogt, Hseckel, Huxley, 
and others. A great conflict has thus arisen, 
in which there is an incessant appeal to 
high authorities. Now it is to Cuvier, now 
to Darwin, now to some dead system, now 
to living investigation. So echoes the con- 
flict and so struggle the combatants, and 
with results so important to mankind that 
it is well worth the cost to take part, and 
that indeed in the interest of exact science. 

The new theory has accumulated so much 
scientific material, the number of its adhe- 
rents is already so great, and the influence 
which it exerts in every department of 
human knowledge so important, that every 
new scientific work is regarded and judged 
from the standpoint of its authority. Most 
of the sciences have, indeed, under its influ- 
ence, suffered a complete revolution. 

Philosophy finds for her speculations a 
real and scientific basis, and enters upon a 
boundless field of investigation. All natural 
sciences have received an impulse in the 
direction of unity. In morphology and biol- 



E VOL UTIOX A PPLIED TO DIETETICS. 1 3 

ogy entirety new fields have been opened 
up, so that anthropology has become one of 
the most developed and important of sci- 
ences. History, from a dead, systematic dog- 
matism, has become a living source of know- 
ledge ; and philology, which has hitherto been 
occupied with the dry, unphilosophical and 
heartless details of grammar, is now, for the 
first time, brought into practical relations 
with material life and with the mental pro- 
gress of our time. 

Speculative theology, alone, takes no part 
in this great development, or, at most, in a 
negative way, seeks by a feeble opposition 
to save itself from total decay. The morn- 
iug-red of knowledge which has dawned 
upon us through the theory of evolution 
prepares the old dogmatic and systematic 
schools in mental, moral, and physical life 
for their final departure, and accompanies 
them upon their way. 

Application of the Theory of Evolution 
to Dietetics. — Least of all — indeed, we may 
almost Fay not at all — has the development 
theory been applied to dietetics, and, never- 
theless, the possibility of such application is 



14 EVOLUTION APPLIED TO DIETETICS. 

so apparent, and the results which it prom- 
ises so important, that it is indeed strange 
that none of the learned have as yet un- 
dertaken it. But a little knowledge of 
human nature will enable us to see why 
this field has hitherto been so sadly neg- 
lected. There has always existed a preju- 
dice against the critical discussion of diet- 
etic theories, and especially against the ne- 
gation of long-established views, and hence 
the scientific treatment of the subject has 
been unpopular. Some, perhaps, who were 
capable of undertaking it, and who realized 
its importance, were deterred by its very 
magnitude and by the thoroughness of the 
changes which it involved; for it invaded 
the domestic circle, and demanded the relin- 
quishment of favorite habits and enjoyments. 
The present attempt to collect the ma- 
terial of a scientific system of dietetics, and 
to present it in a popular form, is prompted 
by a desire to share with my fellow -men 
the benefits which 1 have derived now for 
many years from the practical application 
of the views here presented. But I do not 
deceive myself with regard to human nature, 



WIIA T IS THE XA TURE OF MA X. 1 5 

for I well know that there will be but a 
small minority who will go with me to the 
extreme, but, nevertheless, strictly logical, con- 
sequences of the proposed study. The effort 
must be that of a simple presentation of 
the truth, leaving each one for himself to 
apply it according to his individual ability 
and conviction. 

In order, then, to establish a correct 
dietary for man, we must first gain a true 
knowledge of his nature, and this is only to 
be secured by the most conscientious and un- 
prejudiced study. Let the simple facts bear 
their own testimony, and we shall then find 
all other departments of science in harmony 
with them. We might also well admit the 
testimony resulting from quiet reflection upon 
our own nature, our moral impulses, and our 
unperverted instincts; and if these finer senti- 
ments are found to accord with the deductions 
of exact science, w T e may feel doubly assured 
of the soundness of our conclusions. 

What is the Nature of Man. 

Let us, first of all, by the presentation of 
fundamental laws, seek to answer this ques- 



16 WHAT IS THE NATURE OF MAN. 

tion. While pure anatomy treats only of 
the physical structure of animal bodies, com- 
parative anatomy draws scientific conclusions 
from the facts thus acquired, and to this 
comparative study we have now to direct 
our attention. Between man and the mam- 
malia most nearly related to him there exist 
instructive points of relation and difference 
concerning the digestive apparatus, the food, 
and manner of life. 

Every animal has his appropriate food, 
corresponding to his physical structure; so 
that, in case of uncertainty as to the food, 
we have only to observe the bodily form, 
especially that of the extremities and the 
teeth, in order to decide; for, since the or- 
ganism cannot exist solely within itself, it 
must possess the natural means of obtaining 
from without that which is necessary to its 
maintenance ; and it is evident that the 
internal properties and the process of nutri- 
tion must correspond to the faculties whose 
action is external, and by which the means 
of nourishment are provided. 

We have, therefore, as a first principle 
the following : The proper food of every 



THE MAMMALIA. 17 

individual is indicated by his physical or- 
ganization. In accordance with this principle 
we may classify animals according to their 
food ; and, since all food is either of a 
vegetable or animal nature, we have as the 
two chief and general divisions the Phyto- 
phaga, or plant-eaters, and the Zoophaga, or 
flesh-eaters. This classification, however, is 
not strictly scientific, since there are various 
sub-classes, the food of which, though of a 
vegetable nature, is not always vegetable, 
and others whose food, though of an animal 
nature, is not always animal. 

The Mammalia. We will now first 

direct our attention to the mammalia. Of 
these a part subsist upon vegetable and a 
part upon animal food. To the former, the 
Phytophaga, belong the Herbivora, grass and 
herb eaters ; the Granivora, or grain-eaters ; 
the Frugivora, or fruit-eaters; the Rodentia, or 
gnawers ; the Edentata, which lack front 
teeth ; and others. Other classifications exist, 
as of those who subsist upon land and 
water plants, the Ruminants, etc., but we 
do not need for our present purpose to 
consider them. Among the Zoophaga or 



18 THE HERBIVORA. 

flesh-eaters, we have the land and sea Car- 
nivora, Insectivora, Omnivora, etc. 

The intimate relation that exists between 
the structure of the digestive apparatus, the 
food, and the mode of life, appears, from 
the following considerations, in which we 
disregard at first the intermediate forms, and 
confine our attention to the chief divisions. 

The Herbivora. — The Herbivora subsist 
upon grass and herbs. The genus Bos, which 
includes our common horned cattle, has thirty- 
two teeth. The under jaw has eight incisors, 
articulating with which there is a horny 
process at the front of the upper jaw. The 
incisors are shovel-formed, curved, and very 
sharp. Immediately back of these there is 
a considerable diastema or toothless space, 
and then in each half of both under and 
upper jaw six molars, in all twenty-four, of 
which the back ones are the larger. The 
masticating surface of these teeth has but little 
enamel. The food corresponds to the structure 
of the teeth. It consists of the various grasses, 
weeds, buds and flowers of all kinds, lichens, 
moss, swamp and water plants, and the like, 
and is torn from the stalk with the incisors and 



TEE FR UGIVORA . 1 9 

masticated between the molars. The motion 
of the under jaw is obliquely lateral. The 
teeth of the horse are also an excellent example 
of the Herbivora. See Figure 1. 



Fig. 1. — Teeth op tile Horse (Herbivorous). 

The Frugivora * {Fruit and Grain Eaters). 
— The Frugivora are of a strikingly different 
character. As the best representatives of this 
class we may take the orang and gorilla. In 
these the teeth are alike in number and form, 
though differing somewhat as to size. 

In each jaw there are four incisors, two 
pointed eye-teeth, four small and six large 

* The term Frugivora is employed throughout this 
work iu accordance with the German usage, and 
includes the two English classifications of Frugivora 
and Granivora; that is, all animals adapted to a 
fruit and grain diet. 



20 



THE RODENTIA. 



molars, in all thirty-two. Each of the small 
molars has upon its articulating surface two 
blunt projections, and each of the large ones 
four. The eye-teeth project somewhat beyond 
the others and fit into a blank space in the 
lower row, the other teeth articulating uniformly. 
This is a significant fact with regard to nutrition. 




Fig. 2. — Teeth of the Gorilla (Frugivorous). 

The food depends somewhat upon the lo- 
cality, and consists of the various fruits, corn, 
small grains, and nuts. To this class belong the 
entire family of the Catarrhine monkeys, 
including the gorilla, orang, chimpanzee, gibbon, 
and other genera. Besides these, there are 
also fruit and grain eating bats and Marsupials, 
the teeth of which correspond to those of 
the other Frugivora. 

The Hodentia. — The Rodentia is a pecu- 



THE IiODEXTIA. 



21 



liar order of animals, characterized by two 
very long and strong teeth in each jaw, 
which occupy the place of the incisors and 
canines. Back of these there is a toothless 
space, and then four or. five molars, which, 
when they have a roughened crown, indicate 
a vegetable, but when pointed, an insectiv- 




Fig. 3. — Teeth op the Hare (a Rodent or Gnawer). 

r 

orons, diet. Their principal foods are grains 
and seeds of all kinds, and with these often 
fruits, nuts and acorns. To this order belong 
the families of the squirrel, marmot, all 
species of mice, the beaver, porcupine, hare, 
and others. 

An especial dietetic, subdivision of the 
Kodentia is the lihizophaga, or root-eaters, 



22 THE EDENTATA AND CARNTVORA. 

which includes some species of the Mar- 
supials, and of mice. The food often consists 
exclusively of the roots of the beet, carrot, 
celery and onions. 

The Edentata. — The Edentata, or toothless 
order of the Phytophaga, have, sometimes, 
though rarely, rudimentary back teeth. Their 
food consists of leaves, blossoms, buds, and 
juicy stalks. Some also devour insects, espe- 
cially ants. To this order belong the sloth, 
armadillo, pangolin, and great ant-eater. 

The Carnivora. — The second great dietetic 
class of the animal kingdom is that of the 
Zoophaga, or flesh-eaters, the teeth of which 
are wholly different from those of the 
Phytophaga, or plant-eaters. This class of 
animals are characterized by a peculiar tooth, 
which is entirely wanting in the vegetable- 
eaters — namely, the long-pointed, or canine 
tooth. Accordingly as this tooth is more or 
less developed, the animal is more or less 
carnivorous. In proportion as this feature 
becomes less marked, the animal approaches 
the vegetable-eater in its habits, finally 
passing over wholly into that class; the 
incisors and molars being at the same 



THE CARXIVORA. 



23 



time proportionally more developed. The 
entire class is divided, dietetically, into land 
and sea Carnivora. 




Fig 4. — Teeth op tue Wolf (Carnivorous). 

The carnivorous character is most marked 
in the feline species, in which the incisors, 
six in each jaw, are small and undeveloped. 
The canine tooth is so strongly developed 
that it appears like a projection of the jaw- 
bone. The three molars are very sharp, 
and capped with three points. The motion 
of the jaw in mastication is only vertical; 
in striking contrast with the lateral motion 
of the Ruminants. In accordance with the 
form of their teeth, cats prey upon warm- 
blooded animals. Their salivary glands are 
very imperfectly developed. 

In the dog family the form of the teeth 
is somewhat different. The canine teeth no 



24 THE INSECTIVORA. 

longer play a chief part, nor reach so great a 
size. On the contrary, the number of molar 
teeth is increased, and their development is more 
perfect, which circumstance indicates increased 
mastication. Accordingly many species of this 
family, especially the hyena, live wholly upon 
carrion. 

In the bear family these characteristics 
are still more prominent. The canine teeth 
are less and the molars and incisors more 
developed, the latter having a flat but 
roughened crown. All this indicates a still 
nearer approach to a vegetable and fruit diet, 
as is actually the case. The bear, as is 
well known, is fond of berries, fruits of all 
kinds, milk and honey. 

The Insectivora. — The Insectivora, or insect- 
eaters, are more nearly related to the Rodentia 
than to the Carnivora. The form of teeth 
varies with the species. The incisors and 
canines are not especially prominent, but the 
molars are always serrated with numerous 
small-pointed eminences, or cusps, adapted to 
crushing insects. The three leading families 
of the Insectivora are the moles, the shrew mice, 
and the hedgehogs. They are of small size, 



THE IXSECTIVORA. 



25 



and are found in all countries, except in 
South America and Australia. Although, as 
we shall see later, we have a more certain 
and scientific foundation for determining the 
dietetic and zoological rank of an animal 
in its origin and character than by comparative 




Fig . 5 . — Teeth op tiie Shrew - mouse 
(Insectivorous). 



anatomy, yet we may derive dietetic con- 
clusions from the structure of the teeth, as 
compared with those of man, and these may 
be substantiated by a comparative study of 
the other organs. 

Figure 6 shows the omnivorous teeth of the 
swine, the canines having an extraordinary 



2 6 TEETH OF MA N. 

development, and being used as instruments 
of attack and defense. 




Fig. 6. — Teeth op the Swine (Omnivorous). 

The Teeth of Man. — Let us now consider the 
human teeth. Their most striking peculiarity 
is their perfect articulation : the opposing teeth 
of each jaw meeting uniformly, and leaving 
no interval in the under jaw, opposite the 
canines, as is the case with the anthropoids. 
In their perfect and complete state, there are 
thirty-two teeth, sixteen in each jaw; viz., 
four incisors, two cuspids or canine teeth, 
four bicuspids, and six molars. The incisors 
have a broad, chisel-shaped body, with a 
slightly serrated, cutting edge. The cuspids 
are round and strong, with a long, tapering 
root. The bicuspids, or false molars, have a 
rounded body, terminating on its grinding 
edge in two points, with a rough groove 



TEETH OF VARIOUS AXIMALS. 



27 



between them. The molars are placed be- 
hind all the other teeth. The crown has a 
squared or cuboid form, with four points on 
the masticating surface, separated by channeled 
depressions. 




Fig. 7. — Teeth of Man (Frugivorous). Front view. 




Fig. 8.— Teeth op Man. Side view. 

A Comparison of Jtfan^s Teeth ivith 
those of other Animals. — If now we com- 
pare the human teeth with those of the 



28 TEETH OF VARIOUS ANIMALS. 

chief representatives of the various dietetic 
species, with reference to the peculiarities 
above named — as, the size and kind of teeth, 
their relative length, strength, intervening 
spaces, etc. — we shall find not only the great- 
est similarity, but, at least with reference to 
number and kind, a complete accordance 
between the human teeth and those of the 
anthropoid apes. The complete absence of 




Fig. 9. — Eye-teeth of an old Gorilla. 
Natural size. 

intervening spaces between the human teeth 
characterizes man as the highest aud purest 
example of the frugivorous animal. The eye- 
teeth of the gorilla have often been referred 
to as evidence that this animal does not 
strictly belong to the Frugivora, but the most 
careful observation has substantiated the 



TEETH OF VARIOUS AXTMALS. 



29 



theoretical view which has here been pre- 
sented, and 'has satisfactorily shown that not 
only the gorilla, but also the orang and 
chimpanzee, in a state of freedom, subsist ex- 
clusively upon fruits and grains, except per- 
haps when driven by hunger to a temporary 
resort to other and less preferred foods. 
The eye-teeth of the anthropoid apes are 
of a totally different character from the 
canine teeth of the Carnivora. The former 
are small and stout, and somewhat triangular, 
while the latter are long, round and slender. 




Fig. 10. — Eye-tooth 
op a young Go- 
rilla. Natural 
size. 




Fig . 11 . — Eye- 
tooth of Man. 
Natural size. 



It is a noteworthy fact that the Anthropoid 
eye-tooth is rough and cartilaginous at the 
point of contact between the external tooth 
and the gum, while that of the Carnivora at 
the same point is smooth and sharp. The 
eye-teeth of the Anthropoids is adapted for 



30 



TEETH OF VARIOUS ANIMALS. 



use in cracking nuts and the like, while those 
of the Carnivora are exclusively employed in 
seizing and tearing flesh. This view of the 
true nature of these teeth is confirmed by 
Professor Nicholson, a high authority, and not 
an advocate of the other theories here presented. 




Fig. 12. — Canine or Eye-teeth of the Tiger. 
Natural size. 

In his "Manual of Zoology," pages 604-5, he 
says of the anthropoid apes : " The canine 
teeth of the males are long, strong and 
pointed, but this is not the case with the 
females. The structure, therefore, of the 
canine teeth is to be regarded in the light 



TEETH OF VARIOUS ANIMALS. 31 

of a sexual peculiarity, and not as having 
any connection with the nature of the food." 
The teeth of man are inferior in strength to 
those of the anthropoid apes, but the cause of 
this is to be sought not so much in their 
original character as in the fact that they 
have been weakened and degenerated by the 
use of cooked food for thousands of years. 

Professor Huxley remarks, with regard to 
the eye-teeth of the gorilla: "The great devel- 
opment of the eye-teeth of the adult might 
seem to indicate a flesh diet, but the animal 
possesses no other characteristic of the car- 
nivora." Its extremities end in hands, which 
are admirably adapted to plucking fruit from 
trees, and in feet, for the falsely so-called 
hands of his posterior extremities are in reality 
feet, as well with reference to the system- 
atic arrangement of the bones as of the mus- 
cles. Its gait is nearly, and with some indi- 
viduals entirely, upright; and the tail-like 
prolongation of the spinal column, which is 
peculiar to all other animals of the mammalia, 
is entirely wanting. The nearly upright gait 
and the strongly developed legs constitute 
another point of resemblance in structure and 



32 TEETH OF VARIOUS ANIMALS. 

motion between man and the anthropoid apes. 
The latter, including the chimpanzee, gorilla, 
orang, and gibbon, in common with man, 
have the nasal openings directed downward, 
and divided by a narrow septum, and the 
eyes looking directly forward. Another phys- 
ical characteristic of man and the higher 
apes, which ranks them both as belonging to 
the Frugivora, is the position of the milk 
glands upon the breast, while all other mam- 
malia, whether flesh or vegetable feeders, have 
the so-called teats upon the belly. 

Another characteristic in the form of the 
extremities peculiar to the Frugivora is that 
of the flat nails. An essential difference is 
also to be remarked between the tongue of 
the Carnivora upon the one hand, and of the 
fruit and vegetable-eaters on the other. The 
former is rough and made prickly by the 
presence of horny papillae, thus rendering 
it a most efficient rasp in licking the flesh 
from the bones of its prey, while that of 
the latter is smooth, and the papillae quite 
soft. Since the genuine anthropoids have no 
tail, and no callosities, in distinction from the 
related Platyrrhina, and possess, indeed, no 



INTERNAL STRUCTURE. 33 

anatomical characteristics different from man 
we are compelled to regard the two as be- 
longing in a dietetic as well as zoological 
sense to the same class. 

We have thus been led to the conclusion 
that, considered from a purely anatomical 
standpoint, man is neither a flesh nor a 
vegetable eater, but that his proper food is 
fruits and grains. A further and striking 
characteristic of the Frugivora is that they 
do not take their food directly with the 
mouth, but possess a limb adapted to the 
work of plucking it and conveying it to 
the mouth. This in the case of man and 
the ape is the arm with its hand. 

Peculiarities of Internal Structure. — Be- 
sides these striking external points of re- 
semblance, there are many others relating to 
the interior structure. The skeleton, espe- 
cially the skull and pelvis, the entire digestive 
apparatus, and the physiological process of 
nutrition, all point to a common diet. The 
cell-material of fruits and grains, and especially 
of plants, requires a longer time for digestion 
than that of flesh, and accordingly the stomach 
and intestinal canal of the plant and fruit eaters 



34: 



INTERNAL STRUCTURE. 



are considerably larger and longer than those 
of the flesh-eaters; the colon especially being 
arranged in folds so as to present a great 
amount of interior digestive surface, while the 
same organ is smooth in the Carnivora. 

a. 



^h 




Fig. 13. — Stomach of the Hyena (Carnivorous). 




Fig. 14. — Stomach op a Lion (Carnivorous). 

a. iEsophagus. 

b. Beginning of small intestines. 

The position and form of the stomach are 
also of significance. In the Carnivora it is only 



INTERNAL STRUCTURE. 35 

a small roundish sack, exceedingly simple in 
structure, while in the vegetable feeders it is ob- 
long, lies transversely across the abdomen, and 
is more or less complicated with ring-like con- 
volutions, according to the nature of the food. 




Fig. 15. — Stomach of a Siieep (Herbivorous). 

a. ./Esophagus. 

b. First stomach. 

c. Second stomach. 

d. Third stomach. 

e. Fourth stomach. 

/. Passage into small intestines. 

This appears conspicuously in the Primates, 
which include man, in the Rodentia, Edentata, 
Marsupials, and, above all, in the Ruminants. 
In the latter it presents a series of from four 
to seven wide adjoining and communicating 
sacks. 

The intestine of the lion is three times, and 
that of man and the orang nearly twelve times, 



36 



INTERNAL STRUCTURE. 



the length of the trunk. In the sheep it is 
twenty-five times this length, since the grasses 
upon which it feeds require much more time 

a 




Fig. 16. — Stomach op Man and the Anthropoids 
(Frugivorous). 

a. iEsophagus. 

b. Cul-de-sac, or fundus. 

c. Pyloric orifice. 

d. Pyloric valve. 
e f g. Duodenum. 
7i. Gall duct. 

for digestion than even the grains and fruits 
on which man feeds. A marked peculiarity 
of all the carnivorous mammalia is that the 
skin possesses no sweat glands, while that of 
the Herbivora and Frugivora is abundantly sup- 
plied with them, the number amounting in the 
case of man to over seven millions. The 
cause of this difference lies in the fact that 



MA ITS PL A CE IN NA TURE. 37 

the chiefly nitrogenous flesh-food does not re- 
quire so high a degree of heat radiation and 
perspiration as does the more carbonaceous 
fruit and vegetable food. The Carnivora per- 
spire, therefore, only through the lungs, and 
hence their great aversion to going into water, 
since the water causes no activity of the blood 
in the skin. 

Man's Place in Nature. 

Concerning man's true place in nature 
Hreckel says : " Whatever part of the body we 
consider we find, upon the most exact exam- 
ination, that man is more nearly related to 
the highest apes (pure Frugivora) than are the 
latter to the lowest apes. It would therefore 
be wholly forced and unnatural to regard man 
in the zoological system as constituting a dis- 
tinct order, and thus to separate him from the 
true ape. Rather is the scientific zoologist 
compelled, whether it is agreeable to him or 
not, to rank man within the order of the true 
ape (Simire)." 

To whatever minutiae of detail the com- 
parison is carried, we reach in every case the 
same result. Between man and the anthropoid 



3 8 MA N'S PL A CE IN NA TURE. 

apes there are the closest anatomical and physio- 
logical resemblances. In form and function, 
there is the most exact agreement between 
all the corresponding bones of the skeleton of 
each ; the same arrangement and structure of 
the muscles, nerves and entire viscera, and of 
the spleen, liver and lungs — the latter being a 
matter of especial significance, for between the 
manner of breathing and the process of nutri- 
tion there is the closest relation. 

The brain, also, is subject to the same 
laws of development, and differs only with 
regard to size. The minute structure of the 
skin, nails, and even the hair, is identical in 
charaster. Although man has lost the greater 
part of his hairy covering, as Darwin thinks 
in consequence of sexual selection, yet the 
rudimentary hairs upon the body correspond, 
in many respects, to those of the anthropoids. 
The formation of the beard is the same in both 
cases; while the face and ears remain bare. 
Anthropoids and men become grey-haired in 
old age. But the most remarkable circumstance 
is that, upon the upper arm, the hairs are, in both 
cases, directed downward, and upon the lower 
arm upward ; while in the case of the half apes 



M. I N>S PL A CE IS NA TUBS. 39 

it is different, and not as soft as that of man and 
the anthropoids. 

The eye, on account of its delicate structure, 
is peculiarly suitable for comparisons of this 
kind; and we find here the greatest similarity ; 
even inflammation and green cataract occur, 
under the same circumstances, in both. See, 
also, Darwin upon this point. 

There is no more striking proof that man 
and the anthropoid apes have the same an- 
atomical and physiological nature, and require 
the same food, than the similarity of their 
blood. Under the microscope the blood cor- 
puscles are identical in form and appearance; 
while those of the Carnivora are clearly different 
from them. 

It may now be interesting, in confirmation 
of what has been said, to refer to the family 
life, and, if one may so speak, to the mental 
and moral life of the anthropoids. Like man, 
the ape provides with exceeding care for its 
young, so that its parental affection has become 
proverbial. Connubial fidelity is a general and 
well-known virtue. The mother ape leads its 
yonng to the water, and washes its face and 
hands in spite of its crying. Wounds are also 



40 MA N'S PL A CE IX NA TUBE. 

washed out with water. The ape, when in 
distress, will weep like a human being, and in 
a manner that is said to be very affecting. 
Young apes manifest the same tendencies as 
human children. When domesticated they are, 
in youth, docile and teachable, and also, at 
times, like all children, disobedient. In old 
age they often become morose and capricious. 
Most apes construct huts, or, at least, roofs, as 
a protection from the weather, and sleep in a 
kind of bed. One peculiarity is alone common 
to them and man, and this is the habit 
of lying upon the back in sleep. In battle 
they defend themselves with their lists and 
long sticks; and, under otherwise like circum- 
stances, they manifest like passions and emotions 
with man : as joy and sorrow, pain and envy, 
revenge and sympathy. In death, especially, 
the ape face assumes a peculiarly human-like 
and spiritual expression, and the sufferer is 
the object of as genuine compassion as exists 
in the case of man. It is also well known that 
apes bury their dead, laying the body in a 
secluded spot, and covering it with leaves. Re- 
garding the domestic life of the ape, Darwin 
says, in his " Descent of Man " (Yol. 1, p. 39) : 



MA S'S PL A CE IX NA TURE. 41 

M AYe see maternal affection manifested in 
the most trifling details. Tims Rengger 
observed an American monkey ( a Cebus ) 
carefully driving away the flies which plagued 
her infant, and Duvancel saw a Hylobates 
washing the faces of her young ones in a 
stream. So intense is the grief of female 
monkeys for the loss of their young, that it 
invariably caused the death of certain kinds, 
kept under confinement by Brehm in North 
Africa. Orphan monkeys were always adopted, 
and carefully guarded by other monkeys, both 
males and females. One female baboon had 
so capacious a heart, that she not only adopted 
young monkeys of other species, but stole 
young dogs and cats, which she continually 
carried about with her. Her kindness did not 
go so far, however, as to share her food 
with her adopted offspring; at which Brehm 
was surprised, as his monkeys divided every- 
thing quite fairly with their own young ones. 
An adopted kitten scratched the above-men- 
tioned affectionate baboon, who certainly had 
a fine intellect, for she w T as much astonished 
at being scratched, and immediately examined 



42 THE GORILLA. 

the kitten's feet, and without more ado bit off 

the claws." 

The number of characteristics possessed in 
common by man and the higher apes is, indeed, 
very great, and includes not only physical and 
emotional, but even intellectual, qualities. Those 
already enumerated may suffice for our present 
purpose. It is important, however, to notice 
the fact that the ape, while subsisting exclusively 
upon fruit and grain foods, develops extraor- 
dinary physical strength. 

The Gorilla. — The gorilla, which is now 
regarded as the most human-like of the an- 
thropoid apes, is an enormously strong and 
ferocious animal. Standing erect he is but 
five feet high, and yet is able to encounter 
at once six strong men, and to overcome them 
by his superior strength and agility. From 
the earliest times, apes have often, by some 
writers, been classed as a species of men. In 
Carthagenian history, a wild race is described 
which is now believed to have been either 
the gorilla or some other species of ape. 

Effects of Flesh Foods and Intoxicating 
Drinks upon the Anthropoid Apes. — Al- 
though the anthropoids in their natural state 



TSTOXICA TED A PES. 43 

subsist solely upon fruit and grain foods, they 
can nevertheless be accustomed to a mixed 
or flesh diet ; and exactly here appear their 
human-like characteristics, for the effect of 
such food upon them is the same as in the 
case of man. 

A fatty diet causes eruptions upon the 
face, neck and back. Most apes in captivity 
die of consumption, like a great part of the 
population of cities, while carnivorous animals 
are entirely exempt from it. Apes have 
coughs and colds under the same circumstances 
as men. Small pox and other contagious dis- 
eases also run the same course with them, 
and medicines and other artificial stimulants 
have the same effect. Darwin, in his " De- 
scent of Man," gives numerous interesting 
facts confirmatory of these statements, and 
with regard to stimulants says : 

" Many kinds of monkeys have a strong 
taste for tea, coffee and spirituous liquors ; 
they will also, as I have myself seen, smoke 
tobacco with pleasure. Brelim asserts that the 
natives of northeastern Africa catch the wild 
baboons by exposing vessels with strong beer, 
on which they are made drunk, lie has seen 



44 INTOXICATED APES. 

some of these animals, which he kept in con- 
finement, in this state ; and he gives a laugh- 
able account of their behavior and strange grim- 
aces. On the following morning, they were 
very cross and dismal ; they held their aching 
heads with both hands, and wore a most piti- 
able expression ; when beer or wine was 
offered them, they turned away with disgust, 
but relished the juice of lemons. An Amer- 
ican monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on 
brandy, would never touch it again, and thus 
was wiser than many men. These trifling 
facts prove how similar the nerves of taste 
must be in monkeys and man, and how sim- 
ilarly their whole nervous system is affected." 
Such conclusions, derived by the learned 
from the facts of the case, and with no direct 
reference to the question of diet, are certainly 
of great importance to our present discussion. 
Had these investigators gone a step further, 
and explained the bearing of their conclusions 
upon the subject of human food, they must 
have remarked that the difference between the 
natural food of the lower order of monkeys 
and of the gorilla is greater than that between 
the food of the gorilla and man. Huxley, 



INTOXICATED APES. 45 

indeed, explicitly points out this difference as 
to the anatomical structure, and might well 
have drawn the logical conclusion that the 
same analogy would exist with regard to 
food. He says: " Whatever part of the 
animal structure, whatever series of muscles 
or viscera, we select, as a basis of comparison, 
the result is the same. The lower monkeys 
and the gorilla differ more widely than do 
the gorilla and man." 

This conclusion, which we have drawn 
from anatomy and natural history, that man, 
judged by his physical structure, is by nature 
a fruit and grain eater, is confirmed by a 
further study of his development, both as an 
individual and as a race; and we will now 
consider this branch of our subject in the 
following order: 

1. The Individual Life. 

a. Fetal Life. 

b. Post-fetal Life. 

2. The Life of the Race. 

AVe have first to study the prenatal life of 
the individual, especially with regard to the 
method of nourishment. This process is effected 
by means of the j>lace?ita, a soft, roundish, 



4 6 MAWS PA ST HISTOR Y. 

and vascular organ by which the principal 
connection is maintained between the parent 
and the fetus. The form of this organ is of 
much importance with regard to the classi- 
fication of placental animals, to which all the 
mammalia belong with the exception of the 
Monotremata (the lowest order of mammalia) 
and the Marsupials.* 

Man's Past History on the Globe. 

In order to fully understand the nature of 
man as a fruit and grain eater, as indicated by 
the placental structure, we must make the fol- 
lowing preliminary study : 

The past history of animal life upon the 
earth is recorded in the rocks that form its 
superficial crust. These contain the petrified 
remains of animal and vegetable substances 
deposited during successive ages, and the nature 
of these remains in any particular strata shows 

* The importance of the placenta with reference to 
a scientific classification of animals is recognized by 
all modern naturalists. Professor Huxley, in his 
"Introduction to the Classification of Animals," 
Chapter V, treats it at considerable length, and il- 
lustrates its various forms by engravings, which may 
be advantageously consulted by the reader. — Translator. 



THE EMBRYO. 47 

us what animals and plants were living at the 
time these rocks were formed. These suc- 
cessive periods of life have been designated 
as the Paleozoic, or Ancient-life period ; the 
Mesozoic, or Middle-life period ; and the Kain- 
ozoic, or New-life period. To the rocks 
formed during these periods, and containing 
fossil remains of the animals then existing, have 
been applied corresponding terms. They are 
also called primary, secondary, and tertiary 
rocks. 

The oldest fossil remains of vertebrate 
animals which we possess are of the fishes of 
the palezoic or primary rocks. In these rocks 
are found also remains of amphibious animals, 
and in the mesozoic or secondary rocks appear, 
for the first time, remains of the higher verte- 
bra, namely, of reptiles, birds and mammals. 
Only in the tertiary rocks — that is, in the highest 
and latest formations — do we find the remains 
of the more highly organized or placental mam- 
malia, to which class man belongs. 

The Embryo. — The human embryo, like 
that of all other mammalia, consists, in the 
first stage of its development, of a germ and 
a surrounding yelk, the whole being inclosed 



48 PLACENTAL FORMS. 

by a thick smooth skin, called the chorion. 
The chorion itself is covered, upon its external 
surface, with numerous slender thread-like pro- 
cesses or villi, which project from it into the 
vascular tissue of the placenta. In this man- 
ner, throughout its prolonged intra-uterine life, 
the fetus is both nourished and relieved of its 
effete products. 

The Placental Peculiarities of Different 
Animals. — We have now to consider the pecu- 
liar structure, form and size of the placenta, 
as well as the exact method by which through 
it, in different species of animals, the nourish- 
ment is effected. One of the most striking 
differences presented in placental animals relates 
to the method of union between the mother 
and the fetus. There are two very distinct 
types of the placenta, and, according to Pro- 
fessor Huxley, no transitional forms between 
them are known to exist. These types are 
designated as follows; 

1. The non-deciduate placenta of the Herb- 
ivora. 

2. The deciduate placenta, of which there 
are two kinds : 



PLACENTAL FORMS, 49 

a. The zonary deeiduate placenta of the 

Carnivora. 

b. The discoidal deeiduate placenta of the 

Frugivora. 
The deeiduate placenta is a distinct structure, 
developed from the wall of the uterus, but 
separated from it at parturition, and consti- 
tuting what is known as the " after-birth n ; 
of this the human placenta is regarded by 
Iluxley as the most perfect example; while, 
of the non-deciduate placenta, that of the 
pig and horse are the typical representatives. 
The word decidua signifies that which is 
thrown off. 

The Non- Deeiduate Placenta. — This form 
is thus described by Professor Huxlej r : " Ko 
decidua is developed. The elevations and de- 
pressions of the unimpregnated uterus simply 
acquire a greater size and vascularity during 
pregnancy, and cohere closely with the chorionic 
villi, which do not become restricted to one 
spot, but are developed from all parts of 
the chorion, except at its poles, and remain 
persistent in the broad zone thus formed 
throughout fetal life. The cohesion of the 
fetal and maternal placentae, however, is over- 



50 



PLACENTAL FORMS. 



come by slight maceration ; and at parturition 
the fetal villi are simply drawn out, like 
fingers from a glove, no vascular substance 
of the mother being thrown off." To this 




Fig. 17. — Ideal Section op the Non-Decidtjate 
Placenta op the IIerbivoha. 

a. Uterine surface. 

b. Fetal surface. 

c. Chorionic villi. 

d. Herbivorous embryo. 

e. Navel cord. 

class belong all the Ruminants and Ungulata 
(hoofed quadrupeds), the camel, sheep, goat 
and deer; the ant-eater, armadillo, sloth, swine, 
tapir, rhinoceros, river-horse, sea-cow, whale, 
and others. 

The Zonary Deciduate Placenta. — A zon- 
ary placenta surrounds the chorion, in the 



PL A CES TA L FORMS. 



51 



form of a broad zone, leaving the poles free. 
This form charaeterizes all the land and sea 
Carnivora, and thus includes the cat, hyena, 
puma, leopard, tiger, lion, fox and wolf; the 
dog and bear, the seal, sea-otter and walrus. It 
includes, also, certain extinct species, as the 




Fig. 18. — Ideal Section op ttie Zonary Deciduate 
Placenta of tiie Carnivora. 
a. b. Chorionic villi, forming placenta. 

c. Free part of chorion. 

d. Carnivorous embryo. 

e. Kavel cord. 

maetadon and dinotherium, which, although not 

wholly carnivorous, were, to judge from their 
teeth, partially so. The elephant, the only 



52 



PLACENTAL FORMS. 



living species of these ancient animals, is also 
of this class. 

The Discoidal Deciduate Placenta. — The 




Fig. 19. — Ideal Section op the Discoidal De- 
ciduate Placenta op the Fkugivora. 

a. Uterus. 

b. c. Chorionic villi, forming the placenta. 
d. Chorion. e. Decidua vera. 

/. Decidua reflexa. g. Navel cord. 

h. Frugivorous embryo. 

i. Uterine cavity. 

k. Lower orifice of uterus. 

discoidal placenta is a highly developed vas- 
cular structure, lying upon one side of the 
fetus, in the form of a round disc, leaving 



PLACENTAL FORMS. 53 

the greater part of the chorion free. It is 
thus united only upon one side, at one cir- 
cular point with the mucus membrane of the 
uterus, from which, as already mentioned, it 
is separated at parturition. The orders of 
animals characterized by this form of placenta 
are the Rodentia, ant-eaters, bats, the various 
species of apes, and man. All these are very 
closely united by homologous anatomical forms. 
The human placenta does not differ, in its 
general character, from that of the others, 
and there is no good reason for separating 
man from this placental classification. 

Relations between Placental Forms and 
Individual Characteristics. — From our entire 
knowledge of the development of races and of 
individuals, Vv r e may conclude, upon the basis 
of Huxley's classification, that an intimate 
relation exists between the form and character 
of the placenta and the entire nature of the 
individual. We find among the non-deciduata, 
besides the toothless sloths, only the Ungulata, 
or hoofed quadrupeds, and others developed 
from them. The arrangement of their teeth, as 
of their entire digestive apparatus, marks them 



54: PLACENTAL FORMS. 

as belonging to a single family, namely, the 
Herbivora. 

The zonary placenta characterizes a very 
large family of animals, whose peculiarities are 
distinctly marked, especially with regard to 
their teeth and digestive apparatus. These 
belong to the widely diffused and numerous 
order of the Carnivora. But the most interest- 
ing and important group, with reference to our 
present study, is that characterized by the dis- 
coidal placenta; for, since it includes man and 
the fruit-eating apes, it gives occasion for a 
comparison between these and the other pla- 
cental animals from the standpoint of dietetics. * 

We observe here at once that the majority 
of animals having a discoidal placenta sub- 
sist chiefly upon fruits and grains, and that 
the typical representatives of this class, namely, 
those whose placental formation is most dis- 
tinctly discoidal, are also the most exclusively 
frugivorous. 

Here, as elsewhere in nature, an exact line 
cannot be drawn. Transitional forms exist 
everywhere, and to this the placenta is no excep- 
tion. The most striking accordance, however, 
exists between the placenta of man and that 



PLACENTAL FORMS. 55 

of the tailless apes, namel} T , the gorilla, orang, 
chimpanzee and gibbon. Between other dis- 
coidal species, the differentiation though minute 
is clearly marked, but between man and these 
apes the resemblance is so exact as to stamp 
them plainly as members of the same family. 

The completely developed placenta is in 
the form of a circular disc, about eight inches 
broad, one inch thick, and weighing about two 
pounds. Its manner of development is iden- 
tical in the human subject and that of the 
above-named anthropoid apes. Its exact forma- 
tion is thus described by Huxley : 

" From the commencement of gestation, the 
superficial substance of the mucus membrane 
of the human uterus undergoes a rapid growth 
and textural modification, becoming converted 
into the so-called decidua. While the ovum 
is yet small, this decidua is separable into 
three portions : the decidua vera, which lines 
the general cavity of the uterus; the decidua 
rejlexa, which immediately invests the ovum; 
and the decidua serotina, a layer of especial 
thickness, developed in contiguity with those 
chorionic villi which persist and become con- 
verted into the fetal placenta. The decidua 



56 PLACENTAL FORMS. 

reflexa may be regarded as an outgrowth of 
the decidua vera / the decidua serotina as a 
special development of a part of the decidua 
vera. At first, the villi of the chorion are 
loosely implanted into corresponding depres- 
sions of the decidua ; but, eventually, the 
chorionic part of the placenta becomes closely 
united with and bound to the uterine decidua, 
so that the fetal and maternal structures form 
one inseparable mass." 

The fetus thus united to the mother is 
nourished by means of numerous arterial and 
venous trunks, which traverse the deeper sub- 
stance of the uterine mucus membrane, in the 
region of the placenta. These are connected 
with the placenta by means of the umbilical 
cord, which consists of two arteries and two 
veins. The length of this cord is greater in 
the case of man and the anthropoid apes than 
in any other animals, reaching in them a 
length of about two feet. The strict accord- 
ance which thus appears between the placental 
structure of man and the ape indicates, upon 
the basis of Huxley's principles of classification, 
the same physiological functions and the same 
dietetic character. There exists a complete 



DIETETIC COXCLUSIOXS. 57 

similarity between the corresponding organs in 
eacli : Their extremities end in hands and 
feet. Their teeth and digestive apparatus 
indicate a frugivorous diet. Their breasts and 
manner of nursing suggest the same tender 
care of the new-born creature ; while the brain 
and mental capacity are also of a like char- 
acter, differing only in degree ; indeed, the dif- 
ference between the ape and animals of the 
next lower grade is much greater than between 
the ape and man, there being in the latter 
case really no essential anatomical or phys- 
iological differences. 

Dietetic Conclusions. — Hitherto man has 
seemed to occupy an exceptional position in 
nature, and this view has led to erroneous 
theories of diet ; but these theories are cor. 
rected by the recognition of his true position, 
as belonging to the family of the tailless 
apes, of the order Simae, and to the class of 
animals having a discoidal placenta. We know 
now with certainty that the anthropoid apes, 
in their natural state, live only upon fruit 
and grain. They eat figs, apples, corn, bread- 
fruit, bananas, nuts, etc. The lower orders 
ot" monkeys arc, indeed, somewhat inclined to 



58 DIETETIC CONCLUSIONS. 

eat flesh, but this is not their preferred 
food, while those nearest related to man 
consume vegetable food exclusively. It is 
true that even the higher apes may be trained 
to a flesh diet, but this fact is of no im- 
portance, since in like manner the Carnivora 
may be accustomed to a vegetable diet. It 
is true, however, that the apes kept in zoolog- 
ical gardens, and trained to eat flesh, die 
rapidly with scrofulous affections and con- 
sumption : diseases caused directly by that 
corruption of the blood which results from 
an unnatural change of diet. We shall 
call attention later to similar conditions in 
the human system. 

The natural food of the ape is, as we 
have seen, uncooked fruit and grain, and, 
reasoning from analogy, we are justified in 
asserting that this is also the proper food of 
man. In reaching this conclusion we have 
not been guided by the external character- 
istics of animal life — the mere outward re- 
semblances — upon the basis of which the old 
school of naturalists constructed their systems, 
but have endeavored to make a comprehensive 
study of the entire organism. We have given 



MA UPS STIi UCTURE A AD HIS FOOD. 5 9 

especial attention to the theory of descent, 
since all true relationship must result from 
the fact of a common origin. 

In giving such great prominence to the 
facts of placental structure, as a basis of 
classification, we are justified by the best 
naturalists of the present day. We have 
accepted, without modification, the classifica- 
tion proposed by Professor Huxley, 'and have 
simply extended its application in the direction 
of our present study. At the conclusion of 
his systematic presentation of the subject, in 
his " Introduction to the Classification of Ani- 
mals," Professor Huxley says : " But, admitting 
all these difficulties and gaps in our infor- 
mation, it appears to me that the features 
of the placenta afford by far the best characters 
which have yet been proposed for classifying 
the Monodelphous Mammalia, especially if 
the concomitant modifications of the other 
fetal appendages, such as the allantois and 
yelk-sac, be taken into account." 

Harmony between Jifan^s Structure and 
his Food. — In the placental structure is in- 
volved the history of the development both 
of the race and of the individual; and, since 



60 MAN'S STRUCTURE AND HIS FOOD. 

the placenta is the organ through which the 
nutrition of the fetus is effected, it is of neces- 
sity the direct expression of the dietetic char- 
acter of the fetus. This appears at a very 
early period of fetal life, and becomes more 
and more marked in the successive periods of 
development. We see here in a peculiar form 
the operation of the general law of nature, 
namely, that every species and every indi- 
vidual is nourished in accordance with its 
physiological character. There is the strictest 
accordance between the capacity for nourish- 
ment, the food, and the natural impulses leading 
to its acquirement, on the one hand, and the 
anatomical structure, on the other. The con- 
formation of the skull, teeth, hands and feet, 
tongue, stomach, and entire digestive apparatus, 
exhibit this adaptation. 

With regard to the form of the extrem- 
ities, there are three marked types in the ani- 
mal kingdom, namely, the hoof, the claw, and 
the hand. With regard to embryonic char- 
acters, we have the non-deciduate, the zonary, 
and the discoidal placenta ; and with regard 
to diet, the orders of the Herbivora, the Gar- 
nivora and the Frugivora. Professor Huxley 



STA GES OF BMBB YOXIC LIFE. -61 

has investigated this subject from an entirely 
different standpoint than that of dietetics, 
yet he arrives at the same conclusions con- 
cerning man's place in nature. He says : " The 
most superficial study would at once convince 
us that, among the orders of placental mam- 
mals, neither the whale nor the hoofed crea- 
tures, nor the sloths and ant-eaters, nor the 
carnivorous cats, dogs, and bears, still less the 
rodent rats and rabbits, or the insectivorous 
moles and hedgehogs, or the bats, could claim 
our Homo as one of themselves. There would 
remain, then, but one order for comparison, 
that of the apes (using the word in its broadest 
sense), and the question would narrow itself 
to this, Is man so different from any of the 
apes that he must form an order for himself; 
or does he differ less from them than they 
differ from one another, and hence must take 
his place in the same order with them ? " The 
answer to this question has already been 
given. 

Stages of Embryonic Life. — It is highly 
instructive, with reference to our present study, 
to observe the successive stages of embryonic 
and fetal life. The original principle of life 



6 2 STA GES OF EMBR YOXIC LIFE. 

is everywhere the same. The embryo des- 
tined to develop into a human being cannot 
be distinguished from one that is to produce 
a serpent, a fish, or a bird. The embryo of 
all mammalia, up to a certain point, pass 
through the same course of development, and 
the similarities of form in those races most 
nearly related continue longer than in races 
not thus related. 

The human embryo cannot be distinguished 
from that of the anthropoid ape until a very 
late period, while between the ape and other 
placental animals very great differences are 
apparent, some time before the conclusion of 
fetal growth. Only just previous to birth do 
slight differences appear between the human 
fetus and that of the anthropoid ape, these 
relating chiefly to the posterior extremities, 
which in the one case develop into flat feet, 
and in the other into foot-like hands. In 
all other respects the human child, even af- 
ter birth, bears a striking resemblance to 
the new-born ape, especially in its small 
forehead, and imperfectly developed brain. 
Both come into the world in the same help- 



STA GES OF EMBR YOSIC LIFE. (J3 

less condition, quite unlike the Carnivora, and 
demand a like nursing and care. 

In not a few cases the new-born child 
bears an astonishing resemblance to the young 
ape. The head is disproportionably large, and 
the eyebrows have an unusual projection ; 
the entire body has a thin covering of brown 
hair. In some cases children, afterward blonde, 
have at birth a head of long black hair, 
which falls out after a few days or weeks, and 
gives place to a new and more human growth. 
In all this appears our relation to the fru- 
givorous apes, between which and ourselves 
there is absolutely no biological or dietetic dif- 
ference that can be traced, either in the ana- 
tomical structure or in the development of the 
race or the individual. 

Besides these evidences of the frugivorous 
nature of man, derived from his physiological 
nature, we have a class of facts relating to the 
form of the skeleton, and especially to the 
bones of the skull and face, to which both IIux- 

r 

ley and Vogt have called attention. The relative 
prominence of the teeth and jaws is especially 
to be noted. The facial angle accords with the 
intellectual and moral grade of the individual. 



64 MAN A CHILD OF NATURE, 

* Instinct and its Im/pulses. — Let us suppose 
the case of a man surrounded only by natural 
influences and prompted only by his unper- 
verted natural instincts. Let him have access 
to all natural fruits and grains for food, and 
also have at his service the domestic animals. 
To such a person the thought of slaying and 
devouring these animals would never occur. 
He would find such food as foreign to his 
nature and wants as the grasses beneath his 
feet. But every physical instinct, every moral 
impulse, the sense of beauty and of right, would 
attract him to the overhanging fruit and to 
the waving grains as his natural food. In them 
would he find his highest comfort and satis- 
faction. 

Man a Child of Nature. — In the economy 
of nature, every animal and plant has an 
appointed place and work. The interchange 
of material and the ceaseless transition of 
form goes on in accordance with wisely 
ordained and perfectly adapted law. Even 
though we may deny a purpose in nature 
itself, and attribute all to a personal and over- 
ruling "Will, yet we must concede that the 
general plan acts through those laws the 



THE FOREST TIIE ORIGINAL HOME OF MAN. 65 

operation of which wc continually witness. 
Man, too, in this sense, is the child of Nature, 
and as such his place is not that of the car- 
nivorous devourer. The necessity of killing in 
self-defense implies no duty or necessity to 
eat the carcass, either reeking in its blood or 
disguised by the injurious arts and spices of 
the kitchen. The immense distance, both 
physical and moral, that separates us from the 
ravenous beast of prey, must suggest also an 
essential difference in the means of subsistence. 

The Forest the Original Home of Man. — 
The frugivorous nature of man is apparent in 
the fact of his immediate dependence upon the 
forest. Every animal has its appointed place. 
The Herbivora roam the plains, many of the 
Carnivora seek the desert, the sea has its 
inhabitants, and myriads burrow in subter- 
ranean dwellings, but the forest is the natural 
home of man. In the city he is an exile. 
Here his natural powers decay, and ever and 
anon he must hie away to his native shades 
for that repose of which an unnatural civil- 
ization has robbed him. 

Trees afford not only an important part 
of the food of man, but are his natural pro- 



66 THE FOREST THE ORIGINAL HOME OF MAN. 

tection. They check the violence of storms, pu- 
rify the air, and render the climate more equa- 
ble and the soil more fertile. We are also di- 
rectly dependent upon them for the necessary 
rain-fall, and their destruction over so great a 
portion of the earth has been followed by 
such injurious consequences that the attention 
of governments is everywhere being called to 
it, and already preventive measures have been 
taken and efforts made to replant districts 
where they have been unnecessarily destroyed, 
and to find room for them everywhere by the 
waysides. Thus does man return, impelled by 
the instinct of self-preservation, to his natural 
state. With his grain fields lined by fruit- 
bearing trees, with the vitalizing sun, and the 
cooling shade, he may derive from nature all 
that he needs for the maintenance of his 
physical and moral life. 

Nowhere has civilized man displayed more 
humanity, or greater simplicity of morals and 
of unperverted instinct, than in the vicinity of 
forests. Here have lived the healthiest and 
longest-lived portion of the human race. The 
farther the dwelling place is from the forest, 
the weaker and less courageous are the people. 



THE FOREST THE ORIGTSA L HOME OF MA X. G7 

The destruction of forests and the concentra- 
tion of people in cities were the chief causes of 
the decay of the ancient empires. That the 
enervated Romans fell before the forest-dwell- 
ing Germans is a well-known historical fact. 
A study of the distribution of plants and 
animals over the surface of the earth affords 
us instructive material. The original home of 
man is also the home of fruits and grains. All 
of our most nutritious fruits have been ac- 
climated from the south, and with the diffusion 
of the human race has kept pace also the 
diffusion of the fruit-tree. The highest civil- 
ization is everywhere found in conjunction 
with it. "Where this nourishment is wanting, 
and the food is limited to flesh, with, perhaps, 
mosses and other low orders of plants, the 
human mind is correspondingly weak and ill- 
developed. In the temperate zone, where fruits 
are most varied and abundant, the life of man 
is most developed and prolific. The sense of 
the beautiful, the basis of the fine arts, is also 
developed only under the influence of an abun- 
dant flora of fruit-bearing trees, and through 
tl lis does man attain to the ripest products of 
his earthly life. 



68 



A XA TOMICA L COMPA RISONS. 



The differences between flesh and fruit-eat- 



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"HARMONY OF SCIENCE AND MORALS. 69 

Instinct, Morals and Science Harmonize. — 
The law thus presented by seienee is implanted 
in us also through sentiment and instinct. A 
newly weaned child, left to its own natural 
impulses, desires no other food than juicy un- 
cooked fruits, and among cooked foods it prefers 
the various fruit and farinaceous preparations 
to all others. 

The moral instincts of man may be regarded 
as a certain form of natural law, and may 
thus be employed as means of testing his 
scientific conclusions. In order to . this, it is 
only necessary to submit to our moral sense 
each of the processes by which our nourish- 
ment is provided. A perfect accordance here 
will go far to justify the system of diet which 
we may have adopted. So far as our food is 
provided in harmony with the laws that relate 
to our own nature and requirements, it must 
afford us an inward satisfaction, and only . 
when we threaten to violate these laws will an 
instinctive moral feeling restrain us from such 
a misuse of our natural powers. 

Let us now apply the moral test which we 
have proposed to the practice of slaving and 
feeding upon our fellowcreatures, the faithful 



70 HARMOXF OF SCLENCE'AXD MORALS. 

animals that surround us and serve us. In 
proportion to the degree of elevation of these 
animals in the scale of being must the thought- 
ful and benevolent mind experience a feeling 
of repugnance to such a method of nourishing 
the body. While all who in the least reflect 
upon the matter must experience in some 
degree this aversion to the horrors of the 
slaughter-house, one who has never been acces- 
sory to it, but whose instincts remain pure and 
natural, must regard it with the utmost loathing 
and aversion. 

This instinctive feeling which civilized man 
has so nearly lost must be elevated through 
education to its true moral position. Its man- 
ifestation is nothing else than the effort to 
restore the normal conditions of man's nature, 
and to maintain a proper harmony between 
his physical and mental habits. In the light 
of the facts which we have here presented, 
there can be no further doubt of the frugiv- 
orous nature of man, and the only remaining 
question now is whether he can, by virtue 
of his intellectual character and of his freedom 
and culture, deviate from his original nature, 
and establish new and arbitrary dietetic con- 



UA RMON V OF SCTEXCE A XD MORA LS. 71 

ditions for himself, without serious injury. 

In seeking to answer this question, we are 
at once confronted with the fact, everywhere 
apparent, that man is the child of nature, and 
that his highest wisdom consists not in violating 
the laws of his being, but in submitting to 
thein and in regulating his entire conduct in 
accordance with them. When he is thus in 
harmony with nature, he is indeed able to 
make its laws and normal processes subservient 
to his purposes ; but when he presumes to 
assert his superiority to these laws, or when 
he ignorantly violates them, he appears at once 
feeble and helpless. Disease and premature 
death are Nature's penalties for the violation 
of the physical and moral laws which she lias 
so wisely established. 

The same conditions are apparent through- 
out the entire animate world. A plant flour- 
ishes and develops only in a soil and climate 
which affords it the necessary nourishment and 
other normal conditions of life, and all animals 
whin deprived of these conditions languish and 
die out. All plant-eating animals, for example, 
become diseased when forced to subsist upon 
flesh. Apes thus fed in captivity die of con- 



72 MAN'S HIGHEST CULTURE. 

sumption. Even cooked plant foods destroy 
the health of cows and swine, and shorten their 
lives. The same general law. holds good in 
the case of man, whose organization differs in 
no essential respect from that of other animals ; 
and hence we may well assert that his boasted 
capacity to accustom himself to any chosen 
food rests upon self-deception and exagger- 
ation. 

Marts Highest Culture. — Man's highest 
condition of culture appears to be that in which 
he lives in accordance with physiological laws. 
The assertion that culture and understanding 
elevate him above these laws is only the idle 
boast of a wretched egotism — a boast that makes 
man only an ape with understanding. Man 
is not, however, man by virtue of his intellect 
alone, but through the harmonious development 
of all his faculties. His position is a moral as 
well as an intellectual one; the heart, the affec- 
tions and the sense of moral right must be 
recognized as w T ell as the intellect. 

True culture is esentially nothing else than 
the effort of man, through his consciousness 
and insight into nature, to smooth the course 
of his development, and the same conclusions 



MAWS HIGHEST CULTURE. 73 

which we derive from the evolution of the 
individual apply also to that of the race. 
However one may regard the Darwinian the- 
ory, it is certain that it contradicts no well- 
established scientific fact, while it imparts to 
all the other sciences — to embryology, anthro- 
pology, philology, zoology, philosophy, and psy- 
chology — a unity that has never before existed, 
and explains many hitherto unaccountable forces. 
Darwin gives the following picture of the 
original form and condition of man : " The 
early progenitors of man were, no doubt, once 
covered with hair, both sexes having beards ; 
their ears were pointed, and capable of move- 
ment; and their bodies were provided with a 
tail having the proper muscles. Then* limbs 
and bodies were also acted on by many mus- 
cles which now only occasionally reappear, but 
are present in the Quadrumana. The foot, 
judging from the great toe in the fetus, was 
then prehensile; and our progenitors, no doubt, 
were arboreal in their habits." Again, he 
Bays: "At the period and the place, when- 
ever and wherever it may have been, when 
man lost his hairy covering, he probably 
inhabited a hot country, and this would have 



74 MAN'S NATURE HAS NOT CHANGED. 

been favorable to a frugivorous diet, on which, 
judging from analogy, he subsisted." 

Blood Corpuscles of Man, the Aj?e, and 
the Carnivora. — An important fact, bearing 
both upon the development theory and its ap- 
plication to dietetics, has recently appeared. 
This relates to the similarity between the 
blood corpuscles of man and the anthropoid 
apes, and the difference between both and 
those of the Carnivora. We may, from the 
character of these corpuscles, draw interesting 
conclusions with regard both to man's diet 
and origin. 

Marts Nature has not Changed. — It is 
often asserted by writers, and readily believed 
by the laity, that man originally lived upon 
fruits, but that circumstances led him to 
enlarge his diet by the addition of flesh, to 
which he is now so thoroughly accustomed 
that it has become a necessity. Such an appli- 
cation of the theory of natural selection is, 
however, very questionable. Upon the same 
principle every injurious habit might be justi- 
fied. Man might be pronounced a brandy 
drinker by virtue of long habit, and thus the 
greatest of modern evils, drunkenness, be 



MA X'S NA TUBS HAS SOT CIIA XGED 75 

excused, and the theory of development thus 
be perverted to the subversion of morality, 
while its true application can only lead to 
the noblest results. 

The essential principle of natural selection 
lies in the reciprocal action of two physiolog- 
ical functions : the adaptation of the individual 
to new circumstances, and the transmission of 
those qualities thus called into existence. The 
acquirement of new characteristics on the part 
of the individual depends upon the reciprocal 
action between the organism and external 
influences acting upon it, and this process 
depends greatly upon the chief of all physio- 
logical functions, that of nutrition. Nutrition, 
however, consists not merely in the reception 
of food, but is closely related to the conditions 
of climate, soil, air, light, heat and moisture, 
and to the surrounding vegetable kingdom. 

It would, however, be wholly erroneous 
to suppose that in this process of adaptation, 
and in the acquirement of new qualities, the 
organism acts only passively and receptively. 
On the contrary, every external influence is 
encountered by a vital force acting from 
within, and is accepted, rejected, or treated 



76 AD APT A TION NOT ALWA YS FA VORABLE. 

indifferently, according as it harmonizes, con- 
flicts with, or is indifferent to, the previously 
existing conditions of the individual. The 
organism is itself a force, striving for the 
attainment of a certain end, and eager to 
transmit itself intact to its posterity. 

Adaptation not Always Favorable. — An- 
other important fact in this connection is that 
the process of adaptation to new conditions does 
not always result favorably to the individual 
or to the race. While favorable conditions 
tend to elevate, unfavorable conditions tend 
to deteriorate and destroy; and the latter, 
continued through several generations, may 
lead to disorganization and extinction. Pro- 
gress is not therefore an absolute law of 
nature. New conditions can only be accepted 
by the organism, and thus enter as elements 
into its growth, when they stand in a certain 
relation to it. A natural affinity must exist 
between the two, though they may possess 
certain marked differences, but these must 
act harmoniously and reciprocally. An en- 
forced reception of new qualities or conditions, 
however good these may be in themselves, is 
injurious, and must lead to disease and decay. 



ADAPTATION NOT ALWATS FAVORABLE. 77 

A striking example of development through 
the gradual action of natural forces is pre- 
sented in the record found in the rocks of 
the earth's crust. The fossil remains here 
stored up indicate a vast period of life, and 
of the successive development of species, and 
the laws thus acting must apply, not only to 
the vast series of events that have resulted in 
the existence of man in his present condi- 
tion, but to this condition itself, and to all 
the phenomena of our own daily life. With 
this law of adaptation is associated that of 
hereditary transmission. Adaptation without 
transmission is of no permanent or scientific 
importance. Complete adaptation does not al- 
ways result in transmission, for there is 
primarily in every organism a strong tendency 
to transmit the original fixed characters of 
the progenitor rather than those newly ac- 
quired. This is called conservative trans- 
mission. Hseckel says: "The uninterrupted 
maintenance of the specific characters of a 
species from generation to generation is the 
general rule in all the highly developed plant3 
and animals." 

Every organism resists each new quality 



78 CONDITIONS OF NATURAL ADAPTATION. 

that is forced upon it in the struggle for 
existence, unless this new quality tends to 
make the conditions of life more easy. The 
effort to resist change is therefore nothing 
else than the struggle of the organism against 
those changes that tend to limit its powers. 
The permanence of an acquired character 
depends upon its ability to transmit itself to 
its posterity. In order, however, that a pe- 
culiarity may be transmitted, it must first 
become an integral part of the individual 
who is to transmit it. This is not the case 
with the use of flesh-food by man, for the 
most refined flesh-eater, left entirely to his 
own nature, is no longer able to * subsist 
upon it, for he is not able to appropriate 
and prepare it, and still less is he able to 
transmit to posterity a faculty which he does 
not possess. 

Essential Conditions of Natural Adap- 
tation. — It is indispensably necessary to natural 
adaptation that between the forces of nature 
and the living organism there should inter- 
vene no artificial agency. "While this is true 
with regard to adaptation, it is peculiarly true 
with regard to transmission. Both these are 



COXDTTIOXS OF XA TURA L A DA PTA TIOX. ,9 

purely physiological processes, and cannot there- 
fore have an artificial basis. In what is called 
" artificial propagation " it is not the art of 
man which generates new forms. The part of 
man consists in surrounding the object of his 
care by the most favorable natural conditions. 
These, freely acting, generate new qualities, 
which, if surrounded by the conditions under 
which they were produced, are transmitted to 
posterity. This requisite of immediate contact 
does not exist between man and the flesh 
food to which he seeks to adapt himself. No 
man is able to enter into direct physiological 
relations with a living animal as food. In 
order to accomplish this he must, with the 
aid only of his natural faculties, kill and de- 
vour the animal. But, if between the animal 
and the man the work of the butcher and of 
the cook must intervene, natural adaptation is 
excluded, for these intermediate agencies render 
the process unnatural ; and, since they cannot 
be acquired or transmitted as individual traits, 
they invalidate whatever seeming adaptation 
may be associated with them. Only the 
elements of nature can be allowed to enter 
into the process. Every artificial preparation 



80 CONDITIONS OF NA TUB. A L ADA PTA TION. 

of flesh weakens the natural functions and 
impairs nutrition. The diseases associated with 
flesh-foods show that their tendency is not 
toward a higher development, but that they 
tend to deterioration and decay. 

A further condition of natural adaptation 
is that the offspring should be capable of 
complete adaptation to the acquired charac- 
teristic ; that it should be to them natural and 
in harmony with all their wants and instincts. 
These conditions are not realized in the case 
of a flesh diet. Weaned children do not at 
once and of their own free-will partake of 
it. On the contrary, they have to be accus- 
tomed to it by degrees, and it is often neces- 
sary to resort to artifice to induce them to 
eat it. And when accepted by them, its 
injurious effects become apparent by eruptions 
upon the skin, and by other affections, all in- 
dicating that a poisonous agent has been intro- 
duced into the system. 

The conditions requisite to complete adap- 
tation and transmission may be summed up 
as follows: 

1. The object to be adapted must be re- 
ceived in its natural state. It must not 



COXDTTIOXS OF XA TURA L A DAPTA TIOX. 8 1 

be of a nature to require artificial preparation. 

2. The receptive organism must enter into 
immediate contact with the object, which must 
be in harmony with the previous conditions 
of life. 

3. The assimilated object must generate 
no disease. 

4. In order that a quality acquired by 
adaptation may be transmitted by inheritance, 
it must first become an integral part of the 
parent organism. 

If we now subject the use of flesh as food 
to the test of these conditions, we find that 
it meets no one of them. Its behavior 
toward the system is in the nature of a poison, 
and is therefore directly antagonistic to natural 
selection. 

Only a superficial acquaintance with the 
laws of natural selection can lead to the opinion 
that the accustoming one's self to any chosen 
food can result in genuine adaptation. It is 
plain that different articles of food exert a 
different influence upon the human system; 
and it has not been, and cannot be, shown 
that man has, through any normal or physio- 
logical process, been developed into a true flesh- 



82 CONDITIONS OF NATURAL ADAPTATION. 

eater. However widely the various races of 
men differ, they are united in the fact of being, 
when under conditions promotive of their 
highest welfare, frugivorous. Neither the can- 
nibalism of the New Zealand Maori during hun- 
dreds of years, the strange clay food of certain 
South American Indians, nor the train oil and 
blubber upon which the dwarfish Eskimos sub- 
sist, have been able to produce such changes 
in the human system as to conceal from the 
anatomist the frugivorous organization of man. 
These, like other races, show in their entire 
structure — in the teeth, in the smooth tongue, 
the stomach and intestines, the form of the 
hands and feet, only the characteristics of the 
fruit and grain eater. The consumption of 
flesh for thousands of years may indeed have 
given to man certain carnivorous character- 
istics, but his anatomical structure and physio- 
logical functions remain unchanged. In order 
to effect such a transformation in these as 
should convert man into a carnivorous animal, 
something very different would be required 
from anything that has as yet occurred in 
his experience. 

If, for example, vegetable foods should en- 



FOOD AND SOCIAL CONDITIOXS. 83 

tirely fail, and man should be compelled to 
secure his food by lying in wait for and 
devouring wild animals, he might in the course 
of generations develop a carnivorous nature. 
His teeth might come to resemble those of 
the tiger, his hands might be transformed into 
claws, and his appetite for blood become 
strictly normal. This would accord with the 
laws of natural selection ; but while no such 
process occurs — while man retains all the phys- 
ical characteristics of a frugivorous animal — 
we are justified in pronouncing him to be in 
reality such, and in regarding his present 
habit of flesh-eating as abnormal and antas;- 
onistic to the principles of natural adaptation. 
And, since the human race constitutes but a 
single species, we are justified in drawing 
general dietetic conclusions, applicable to man 
everywhere. Differences of anatomical struc- 
ture such as would rank one human family 
among the Carnivora, and another among the 
Frugivora, would indicate a variation far ex- 
ceeding the proper limits to which a single 
species are confined. 

The Relation of Food to Social Con- 
dition*. — A glance at human history — at what 



84: FOOD AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 

we may call comparative history — will exhibit 
the moral and social bearings of this question. 
Carnivorous men, like carnivorous animals, are 
disposed to a roaming, savage and warlike 
life; while frugivorous men, like frugivorous 
animals, tend to much closer social relations: 
gathering in communities and waging war, 
rather in self-defense, or with a moral pur- 
pose, than for the love of carnage. Agri- 
cultural races have ever been least inclined 
to strife, but the bravest and most stead- 
fast in defense of right. The wild Indian, 
thirsting for blood, vanishes before the peaceful 
settler who, in defense of home and commu- 
nity, engages in war only that the peace 
and quiet which he loves may be perma- 
nently secured. Thus the bone and sinew of 
the conquering German armies have chiefly 
consisted of the peace-loving peasants who 
subsist mainly upon man's natural food. So 
far as these have been led to wars of con- 
quest, they have been stimulated to it by 
the ambition of the flesh-consuming and cor- 
rupt aristocracy which dominates at the great 
political centers, where such wars are deter- 
mined upon, and to which the peace-loving 



EVIDENCE FROM EMBRYOLOGY. 85 

agriculturist is unwillingly led, though his 
steadfast character is its chief support in the 
hour of trial. 

In the deviation from a frugivorous diet 
is to be found one of the causes of that 
physical decay which is so apparent in all 
great European cities, where a much larger 
j>roportion of flesh is consumed than in the 
country. The population of cities has con- 
tinually to be replaced by accessions from the 
more frugivorous inhabitants of the country. 
It is said that a Parisian family scarcely 
survives a third generation. Thus history 
confirms the deductions which we have drawn 
from science, and both justify us in asserting 
that an agricultural life and . a vegetable diet 
constitute the physical basis of individual as 
of national prosperity, and that through them 
all natural forces of the human organism are 
conserved and perpetrated, while, on the con- 
trary, a flesh diet leads to disintegration and 
decay. 

Evidence from Embryology. — Embryology 
also affords us important evidence bearing 
upon this subject. The human embryo passes 
through a succession of stages corresponding 



86 EVIDENCE FROM EMBRYOLOGY. 

to those of the entire race. In these it 
approaches more and more nearly to the 
frugivorous anthropoid ape, and it is there- 
fore unphilosophical to hold that man is 
normally developed into a flesh-eater. Rather 
would we expect him to continue the same 
course upon which, by virtue of his organ- 
ization, he had once entered. A knowledge 
of the development of any organism is neces- 
sary to a complete acquaintance with its 
present condition and requirements. The suc- 
cessive stages through which the human em- 
bryo and fetus pass correspond to those of 
the race. At first there is no distinction 
apparent in the life germs of different animals, 
including man. Professor Agassiz at one time 
having neglected to attach a label to a certain 
embryo in his collection could not tell after- 
ward by the most minute microscopic exam- 
ination whether it was that of a fish, a bird, 
or a mammal. 

Commencing thus upon a seeming level 
with all the animals, the human germ passes 
through successive stages of development, in 
which it bears a resemblance to higher and 
higher forms of animal life, terminating with 



EVIDENCE FROM EMBRYOLOGY. 87 

that of the frugivorous anthropoid ape, in the 
last stage of fetal life, and being, so to 
speak, only born as a man, for there only 
do the features that distinctly characterize 
the human species become fully apparent. 
It is agreed by all modern naturalists that 
the development of the individual corresponds 
to that of the race to which he belongs, 
and it follows from the facts presented that 
human development has been progressively 
toward a vegetable diet. Shall we then 
assume that, man being developed, his further 
course is backward toward the Carnivora! 
Such is the nature of the argument for a 
flesh diet, when based upon man's capacity 
of adaptation to new conditions. It certainly 
seems more philosophical to regard his fru- 
givorous tendencies as normal and proper, 
and his taste for flesh as something acquired 
under the pressure of circumstances. 

The natural course of development, as man 
progresses from a savage to a civilized state, 
is certainly not in the direction of flesh- 
eating. The ability to kill and devour is of 
a lower order than the ability to till the 
soil. The roaming savage subsists by the 



8 8 EVIDENCE FROM EMBR YOLOGY. 

chase, and it is the especial care of the 
Christian missionary to convert him into a 
peaceful agriculturist, in which condition he 
becomes more and more a vegetarian ; and 
this is true of the human race in general. 
The testimony of the Indian chief in "Lorna 
Doone " is especially in point here : " Do 
yon not see," says he, "that the whites live 
on corn, but we live on flesh; that the flesh 
requires thirty moons to grow, and is often 
scarce; that every one of the wonderful seeds 
which they scatter on the soil returns them 
more than one hundred-fold ; that the flesh 
has four legs to run away, and we only two 
to catch it ; that the seeds remain and grow 
where the white man sows them ; that winter, 
which for us is the season of laborious hunts, 
is to them a time of rest? It is for these 
reasons that they live longer than we do. I 
say, then, to every one who hears me, before 
the maples of the valley cease to yield us 
sugar, before the trees above our huts shall 
have died of age, the race of the sowers of 
corn will have extirpated the race of flesh- 
eaters, unless the hunters resolve also to sow." 



tra ysrrroxA lsta ges. 8 9 

Transitional Stages of Development. — 
Combining all the evidence we possess, and 
tracing the development of the individual from 
the first germ of embryonic life, and of the 
race from its mere brute origin, through all 
stages, up to the ideally perfect man in a 
perfected human society, we are justified in 
regarding him as originally a frugivorous ani- 
mal ; as then * forced, by the lack of his 
natural food, to subsist partially upon flesh ; 
again, as emerging from a savage state and 
becoming a peaceful tiller of the soil, and 
chiefly frugivorous, yet retaining his acquired 
taste for fiesh, and indulging it most in the 
more corrupted states of civilization and of 
indolent luxury ; and finally as recognizing 
his own true nature, and returning to his 
original diet, under the guidance of science 
and the moral instincts. 

The remarkable accordance between the 
development of a race, and of the embryonic 
life of the individuals belonging to it, which 
we have here presented, is of the widest 
application, and serves to show the dietetic 
relationship of various groups of animals. 
From it we deduce the general proposition 



9 TRANSITIONAL ST A GES. 

that the dietetic character of the individual 
is that of the race in miniature. Guided by 
this double parallel between the race and 
individual development, on the one hand, and 
of comparative anatomy between man and 
the other placental animals, on the other, 
we have an excellent, even if not a conclu- 
sive, evidence for the frugivorous character of 
man. 

The most important changes which man has 
undergone in his process of development, since 
he began to take on the distinctively human 
character, relate to his external form ; as, for 
example, his adaptation to life upon an open 
plain, and his upright gait, and consequently 
his fine development of limbs and hands, the 
loss of his hairy clothing, and the change from 
a prehensile to a flat foot. These purely me- 
chanical changes could have occurred in a 
coDsiderably shorter time than that of the 
claimed dietetic change, since they accord 
with his instinctive feelings. Although we 
are unable to state the duration of the sev- 
eral paleontological periods of human existence 
with exactness, this much is known : that for 
man's gradual development, even within the ter- 



TRA XSTTIOXA L STA QBS. 9 1 

tiary period, a vast amount of time was 
requisite. It is therefore unreasonable, when 
we consider the slowness of the process of 
evolution, to assert that so great a change 
as that from a fruit to a flesh diet occurred 
within the comparatively short period that 
must be assigned to it. The slowness of these 
changes by natural selection appears at the 
present day in the intermediate forms of Pin- 
epedia and Lutrina, web-footed animals, among 
which are found the common sea-dog and the 
fish-otter. The former, which appears related 
to the sea-horse, is developed, probably, from 
the Pachyderms, the latter from a weasel-like 
carnivorous animal. Although both are still in 
process of transition, we find, nevertheless, 
their transitional forms as far back as the 
tertiary period. 

An interesting addition to the known trans- 
itional forms is believed to have been found 
recently in the fossil remains of a hitherto 
unknown ape, the Dryopithecus. This belongs 
to the miocene period, and since it has been 
found in Spain it affords evidence of the 
cxi-tence of a European anthropoid in the 
middle tertiary period. This animal may be 



92 TRANSITIONAL STAGES. 

regarded as an intermediate form between 
the gorilla and man. 

The opinion that man has, by the process 
of development, been transformed from a fru- 
givorous to a partially carnivorous animal is 
hardly justified, in view of the fact that not 
more than the tenth part of the human race 
have ever been flesh-eaters, and that ancient 
science and art flourished, especially, among 
vegetarian races, as in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, 
Italy and India. The history of the develop- 
ment of races teaches us that the various 
classes of animals, as the Carnivora, Omnivora, 
Frugivora and Granivora, took on these dis- 
tinctive characteristics at a very early period, 
and that each tended strongly toward the 
complete development, of its peculiar form of 
life. The present Carnivora may be traced 
back through a succession of forms, to the 
earliest periods of animal life, retaining every- 
where their peculiar character. Another and 
wholly distinct series of forms gave rise to the 
various species that subsist upon the vegetable 
kingdom. The line of distinction is every, 
where preserved. The assumption that man 
has passed this line, and been transformed into 



TRANSITIONAL STAGES, 93 

a partially carnivorous animal, within a com- 
paratively recent period, is contrary to all 
precedent and unsustained by the facts of his 
actual history. 

In the development of animal and plant 
life, throughout all time, there exists a certain 
relation highly instructive in our present 
study. All life originated in the water. The 
lowest animal forms were nourished by the 
lowest plant forms, the ancient fishes by the 
sea-plants of that period, the monsters of 
the carboniferous period by the coarse and 
luxuriant vegetation now stored up in our 
coal beds, while the higher grains and fruits 
belong to the era of man and his immedi- 
ate progenitors. 

We have thus been led, by a review 01 
all the sciences bearing upon this subject, to 
the conclusion that man is a highly organ- 
ized animal, whose proper food is that of the 
vegetable kingdom, especially the higher fruits 
and grains. This accords with all that we 
have learned of his embryological develop- 
ment, his anatomical structure and physiolog- 
ical functions, his dietetic capacity and instinct- 



94: SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES OF DIET. 

ive feelings, his moral consciousness and sense 
of justice to his fellow-creatures. 

The laws of man's nature, as thus estab- 
lished, cannot be suspended by the artificial 
methods of civilization without injury. His 
true position is that of harmony with nature ; 
and in proportion as he rises in the scale of 
being he will find his nourishment more and 
more in the beautiful fruits and grains that, 
above all else, tempt the unperverted appetite 
and maintain the moral life. 

Scientific Principles of Diet. — We have 
now, upon the basis of our studies in anthro- 
pology, the following principles of a scientific 
diet: 

1. Every species and every individual is, 
or should be, nourished in accordance with 
his organization. 

2. The dietetic laws of the individual 
correspond to those of the race, and are the 
product of race development. 

3. Man is by nature purely frugivorous, as 
appears from our parallel study of embryonic, 
post - embryonic and race development and 
anatomical structure. 



INFLUENCE OF FOOD. 95 

Influence of Food on the Character of 
Races. — Referring to human history, we may 
trace the character of races, and the cause of 
many evils, inr the dietetic character of the 
people. It is not too much to assert that the 
solution of the great social questions of the 
present day would be greatly promoted by 
attention to the question of food. The rejec- 
tion of flesh would give a new direction to 
human culture and industry. Agriculture 
would be greatly developed. The numer- 
ous diseases now traceable to a flesh-diet 
would disappear, and with them the manifold 
cruelties of the slaughter-house. The expense 
of living would be greatly reduced, and thus 
the poorer classes would be elevated. The 
recent investigations of Mr. Napier, witli regard 
to vegetarianism as a cure for intemperance, 
have shown that one of the greatest of social 
evils would be in great part, if not wholly, 
removed, by placing its victims upon a vege- 
table diet. 

The effect of a flesh-diet upon the human 
system is to excite evil passions, and to 
make men not brave and steadfast, but restless 
and quarrelsome — a condition exactly suited to 



96 ORIGIN OF FLESH-EATING BY MAN. 

the purposes of those political leaders and 
ambitious monarchs whose lust for power de- 
mands such material for the prosecution of 
unrighteous wars. Such wars do not originate 
with the sober and industrious peasantry, whose 
food is mostly vegetable, and whose passions 
are moderate. Only through their patriotism, 
and sense of duty to their rulers, are these 
led from their homes, as victims of a base 
ambition. It is the rabble of the city, the 
flesh-fed and corrupted victims of a false civil- 
ization, that first applaud the decrees of war, 
of which the steadfast peasantry are alike the 
support and the victims. 

Origin of Flesh- Eating by Man. — If 
flesh is unnatural food for man, wherein then 
shall we seek the origin of its use ? We find 
it in the fact that the question of existence takes 
precedence of the question of food ; hence, any 
animal will eat that to which he is not well 
adapted rather than starve. A traveler who 
sees the native Australian, whose means of 
subsistence are exceedingly scanty, catching and 
devouring the most loathsome worms and rep- 
tiles, will hardly assert that these are his 
most suitable food ; but will rather recognize 



CHAXGES HI CLIMATE AXD FOOD. 97 

the stern necessity that drives him to this 
means of sustaining life. Again, we find in 
all the cultivated races a tendency to deviate 
from the simple laws of nature to gratify a 
perverse ingenuity, and to exhibit skill in the 
production of attractive, through pernicious, arti- 
cles of food. The artistic cook and the depraved 
savage thus join hands in devising means for 
perverting the natural appetite. 

Changes in the Eavtlis Surface and Cli- 
mate, Causing Great Changes in Marts Food. 
— The changes of surface and temperature, 
through which the earth has passed within the 
period of man's existence upon it, have had 
an important bearing upon the supply, and 
consequently upon the method, of nutrition. 
Our best anthropologists and philologists agree 
that man probably originated in the south of 
Asia, middle Africa, and especially upon the 
now sunken continent called Lemuria, lying 
between Madagascar and the Sunda islands. 
From here, as is evident from a study of com- 
parative philology and the fossil remains of 
man, the human race gradually spread and 
became more cultured. In the miocene system 
of the tertiary period are found, united with 



98 CHANGES IN CLIMATE AND FOOD. 

the remains of large and long since extinct 
man-like apes, the first traces of ape-men, 
though only in the form of fossils. It seems 
probable that, at the time of the emergence 
from the brute to the human condition, the 
species thus developed had extended very 
widely over the earth's surface. In support of 
this assumption we have the fact that the 
Dryopithecus, a large ape-man, existed in west- 
ern Europe, even in the miocene period. The 
first traces of culture appear after the begin- 
ning of the glacial epoch. All the remains 
that we possess belonging to that period con- 
sist of bones, and indicate the existence of a 
race of hunters. The glacial epoch was one 
of very great change in the life conditions of 
all beings under its influence. Previous to it, 
during a vast period of time, a tropical climate 
existed over the entire earth, even to the Poles, 
as is plainly shown by the remains of plants 
and animals now found. Here the original man 
lived upon those wild fruits which he plucked 
from the trees, and ate without preparation. 
Bat these conditions of Paradisical abun- 
dance and indulgence were changed by the 
transition through which the earth passed as 



CHANGES IX CLIMATE AND FOOD. 99 

the enormous ice fields extended gradually to 
the south, forcing the present tropical animals 
southward, and subjecting the more enduring 
and more ingenious race of man to altogether 
new conditions, by which his intellectual re- 
sources were greatly developed under the press- 
ure of necessity. The " struggle for existence " 
must have been fearful, and compelled a re- 
sort to kinds of food hitherto repulsive. 

The glacial area did not extend as far as 
the Tropics, and the conditions of life were 
here not changed ; as evidence of which we 
find at the present time races in eastern Africa 
and southern Asia which still live upon 
vegetable food only. Within the glacial period 
occurred also a great change in the configura- 
tion of the land. The great continent of 
Lemuria sank beneath the level of the ocean. 
The waters of the Indian ocean broke through 
the Red and Mediterranean seas, formed the 
Persian gulf and opened the straits of Gibral- 
tar. Man, hemmed in between the sea upon 
the south and the ice masses upon the north, 
was ]■< duced to the greatest want. The trop- 
ical region.- were probably as densely populated 
then as now, since a long period favorable to an- 



100 CHANGES IN CLIMATE AND FOOD. 

imal life had already elapsed. The multitudes 
that were pressed southward, wherever the way 
was open to them, must have come into violent 
conflict with those whose territory they invaded. 
Under such circumstances, the choice of food 
was not natural, but forced, and hence might 
well have originated the use of flesh foods. The 
conditions of natural selection were by no means 
as perfect at this time as they had been during 
the tertiary period; in which a favorable climate, 
and especially the free migration of species, con- 
tributed to the development of new forms and to 
the ready adaptation to new and normal con- 
ditions. It appears that where circumstances 
did not favor migration, development through 
natural selection was much more limited. 
The present anthropoid apes had, at the time 
of the glacial epoch, the same characteristics 
as at present. The most important agencies 
in natural selection were the isolation of 
species by migration, elevation of the bed of 
the sea to islands afterward peopled, and other 
changes of the earth's surface. The great 
climatic changes of the glacial period do not 
appear to have caused the development of 
new species, though it influenced the character 



A NSW EPOCH. 101 

and habits of those already existing. The 
present species had their origin apparently 
within the enormously long tertiary period, 
with its great changes in the configuration of 
the earth's crust. So considerable a physi- 
ological change as that involved in a real 
transition from a frugivorous to a flesh diet 
would have carried with it anatomical 
changes of so important a character as to 
have generated a new species of the human 
race, but this has not been the case. There 
are tribes that have lived upon vegetable food 
fur thousands of years and yet show no differ- 
ence in the form of their teeth from those 
of the Europeans. Examples of this kind are 
to be found in the inhabitants of some of the 
islands of the Pacific ocean. 

A New Epoch. — After the subsidence of 
the ice period, the high north, which previous 
to it had bloomed with tropical life, was con- 
verted into an unfruitful and worthless region. 
Europe, covered with impenetrable forests and 
dismal swamps, lay under a gray sky and in 
an atmosphere loaded with vapors. Man, fallen 
from his condition as a fruit-eater, and impelled 
by necessity, learned the use of fire and began 



102 THE STONE A GE. 

to cook his food, which still consisted in part 
of flesh. This was long before the stone age, 
and is called the bone age, on account of 
the great abundance of the bones of men 
and animals found in the caves still existing, 
in which men lived like beasts. The cave- 
bear and lion, the ure-ox and elk, giant stags 
and mammoths, contended here with man in 
a miserable struggle for existence, and the min- 
gled remains of all as now found indicate the 
condition of human life at that remote period. 
All the implements found among these 
remains relate to hunting, being either the 
weapons of the chase or tools used in making 
such weapons, and all are made of the bones 
of long extinct animals, such as the bear, 
rhinoceros, and others. Hunger drove men 
to fearful extremes, and the chief energies of 
life were consumed in its coarsest satisfaction. 
Even carnivorous animals were devoured by 
men, as is apparent from the marks upon 
the bones split open for the marrow. 

The Stone Age. — The men of the stone 
age lived under more favorable conditions, as 
we learn from the remains of their food still 
found in their former dwelling-places. There 



ORIGTX OF A GRTCULTURE. 103 

are traces of different kinds of vegetables, 
apples and berries, jet the practice of flesh- 
eating, once established by necessity, could not 
easily be relinquished. The natural instinct 
could not at once reassert itself, yet the gradual" 
improvement of society, and the thoughtful 
study of the human body, led thinking men by 
degrees to the conclusion that man was not 
organized to destroy other animals for food, 
but that this practice tended to make him 
savage and to lower his whole character. Thus 
it is that the pure teachings of nature have 
in all ages and among every people found, 
here and there, a few capable of receiving and 
applying them. 

Origin of Agriculture.— -Since men can- 
not live on flesh alone, and since nature after 
the glacial epoch provided fruits and grains, 
spontaneously only in the warmer regions of 
the earth, it became necessary that man should 
provide them for himself. In this neces- 
sity agriculture had its origin — and if there 
is any evidence of the frugivorous nature of 
man, aside from his anatomical structure, it 
is in the fact that he tills the soil. It may 
also be assumed that the necessity of pro- 



104: MAN BY N A TUBE FB TJGIVOBO US. 

viding fruits and grains for food developed 
the understanding and led man to reflection. 

Man by Nature Frugivorous. — There are 
yet tribes in the south who practice the nat- 
ural manner of living prevalent all over the 
globe before the glacial epoch. They did 
not even know the use of fire until Euro- 
peans taught it to them. It is a fact that 
they know little or nothing of disease and 
live to an advanced age. It may be that 
their methods of culture and their religious 
opinions are very objectionable, nevertheless 
they afford us good evidence that a frugiv- 
orous diet is highly favorable to health of 
body and length of life. 

Since, also, the fossil bones of man found 
in the tertiary are larger and stronger than 
those of the historical epoch, we may conclude 
that the fruit and grain foods on which he 
then subsisted were more favorable to phys- 
ical development than is the mixed diet of 
our own time. In short, in whatever manner 
we conduct this investigation, if it is only done 
logically, and includes all the biological evi- 
dence, we can only come to the conclusion 
that man is by nature, by development, and 



MA N B Y NA TUBE FR UGIVORO US. 105 

in all his tendencies, frugivorous ; that his 
change to a flesh or mixed diet was purely 
one of necessity ; and that the present use of 
flesh food has its foundation only in custom, 
and has become the source of many diseases 
and infirmities. And if fruits and grains are 
man's natural food, it is also evident that 
they are able to give him strength to endure 
cold and to perform the most exhausting labors, 
and that we are not benefited by departing 
from their use. 

Science has for its mission the discovery 
of truth. It is satisfied with establishing the 
facts; the wise application of them to the 
necessities of daily life she leaves to man. 
Well, indeed, is it for those families who, with 
a correct knowledge of the principles we 
have here endeavored to establish, are able to 
banish bloody food from their tables. In so 
doing they have ennobled themselves. Their 
choice of foods from the many fruits and 
grains, vegetables and roots, is so great, the 
changes which they can make are so manifold, 
the fruits are so nourishing, so healthful, so 
agreeable to the taste, so pure and refreshing, 



106 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 

that there is continually a new and high 
delight in each repast. 

Personal Experience. — The number of 
those who have chosen a natural diet is 
steadily increasing, and such show in their 
healthy appearance and their inward content- 
ment how truly Nature rewards the observance 
of her laws. But even among these there yet 
remains something to be wished. The force 
of old custom, and the seeming necessities of 
those whose health has already been impaired, 
render an immediate and abrupt change diffi- 
cult. Yet I can testify from my own experi- 
ence that, when wisely entered upon, the 
principles here advocated are strictly practi- 
cable, and the more so when carried out to 
their fullest extent — that is, by the adoption 
of a diet consisting of fruit and bread only — 
and I would especially recommend to those 
who have the care of the young that they 
pursue this course. This diet also bears the 
test of scientific criticism, and to this science 
must at last come if it pursues the right course. 



PART II. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 

As already shown, the chief error which 
has been committed in the establishment of 
dietetic theories consists in estimating the 
value of the various foods according to their 
chemical elements, while leaving out of con- 
sideration the character of the organism by 
which they are to be assimilated. But the 
question of a scientific diet is far more ana- 
tomical than chemical. As evidence of this, 
let us consider the digestive apparatus of man 
and compare it with that of the lower animals. 

The Saliva. — The saliva of a healthy man 
has but a slightly alkaline reaction. The food 
to be acted upon by it must consequently be i 
of such a nature that it may be saturated 
by the saliva, and, to a certain extent, dis- 
solved by it. AVe find this, however, to be 



108 THE GASTRIC JUICE. 

the case only with fruits; for flesh, eggs, alcohol 
and other articles are but slightly affected by 
saliva, and mostly only mechanically mixed 
with it. The saliva of carnivorous animals 
is slight in quantity, but sour, and thus 
capable of dissolving the food whole. The 
digestive organs and course of nutrition of 
the anthropoids is essentially the same as 
that of man. Vegetable food, when completely 
masticated, affords a sweetish taste, because 
the starch which it contains is, by the action 
of the saliva, transformed into sugar. This 
is especially the case with fruits and grains, 
but not at all true of flesh. 

The Gastric Juice. — A leading element of 
the gastric juice is lactic acid (C12. H10. O10. 
2 HO.). This excites a slight fermentation of 
the chyme, and thus exerts an influence upon the 
digestion of vegetable, but not upon that of ani- 
mal, food. It is far too weak to act upon 
the fibers of animal flesh. All fats are 
insoluble in water, spirits of wine, and acids. 
Flesh, when eaten by man, tends to undergo 
a process of decay in the stomach, causing 
a scrofulous poisoning of the blood. In this 
unnatural action lies the cause of many com- 



TEE GASTRIC JUICE. 109 

plaints and disturbances of the system: as bad 
breath, heart-burn, eructations, and vomiting. 
In the case of the Carnivora the gastric juice 
exerts a decomposing influence upon flesh 
and causes its assimilation and excretion. 
Since the pancreatic juice of the duodenum, 
into which the chyme passes from the stomach, 
bears a close resemblance to the saliva, it 
follows that the chyme here, also, can have 
only a slightly acid property, which it indeed 
can only have when it is of a vegetable 
character. Bile, which is here poured into the 
intestines, has only a slight alkaline reaction, 
and its use seems to be limited to the preven- 
tion of decay, which, however, can only occl 
in the case of flesh-food; so that the effort of 
nature to maintain flesh-food in its proper con- 
dition by the secretion of bile must be excessive, 
and must evidently cause an excitement and 
weakening of the whole organism. 

In the case of fermentation, through the de- 
composition of sugar, alcohol is formed,* and 
is essential to nutrition, being retained in the 

*This statement, concerning the formation of alco- 
hol in t! in, has not yet been generally accepted 
l>v physiologists.— Translator. 



HO EXCRETOR Y PR OB UCTS. 

blood, yet when taken in its pure state into 
the system in the form of spirituous drinks 
it acts most injuriously. In this form it 
weakens the entire digestive system, and is 
absorbed by the lymphatic glands of the 
stomach, from which it passes into the blood 
vessels, in a manner unnatural and injurious. 
Let no one, therefore, be deceived by the pre- 
text that a service is rendered to nature by 
supplying it gratuitously with that which it 
prepares for itself by a natural process, through 
the action of the saliva and fermentation ; 
for that which has already fermented cannot, 
upon being introduced into the system, again 
take part in the normal process of digestion. 
It acts only as a foreign body, which must 
be carried or excreted at the expense of those 
organs which are compelled to endure its 
presence. 

Excretory Products. — In accordance with 
these principles, we find a marked difference 
in the excretory products of different animals. 
In the Carnivora the reaction of the urine is 
acid, while in the Herbivora it is alkaline. 
In man it is usually acid, though it varies 
with the nature of the food. It is a well- 



XA TURE'S PRO 71810$ FOR MA X. HI 

known fact that a diet consisting largely of 
flesh may seriously change the urine, causing 
it to be very offensive, while that of those 
who consume much fruit is peculiarly free 
from abnormal or offensive qualities. Simi- 
larly, the perspiration of flesh-eating men is 
rich in buttric acid and ammonia, and has an 
offensive and decidedly sour smell. The over- 
loading of the blood with flesh-foods causes, 
in order to their decomposition, an excessive 
consumption of oxygen, and hence the diffi- 
culty of breathing and asthmatical affections 
of many flesh-eaters, and their excessive excre- 
tion of carbonic acid. 

Nature's Provision for Man. — If now man 
is, as shown by his development and organ- 
ization, frugivorous, it must be that nature 
provides for him all that he requires for his 
sustenance, completely ready, and without the 
necessity of artificial preparation, and this we 
find to be actually the case. The original 
southern home of man presents these fruits in 
great abundance. The most of them are juicy; 
and the most important among them are figs, 
dates and almonds, olives, bananas, sweet 
potatoes, melons and grapes, bread-fruit, chest- 



112 MATURITY OF FRUITS AND VARIETY IN FOOD. 

nuts, coeoanuts, and, among grains, especially 
Indian corn. In tlie north we have an enor- 
mous treasure of juicy fruits, to the culture 
of which too little attention is given. I refer 
especially to cherries — of which we have many 
varieties — currants, gooseberries, strawberries, 
blackberries, mulberries, raspberries, plums, 
prunes, peaches, apricots, apples and pears of 
the most various kinds, grapes, melons, walnuts 
and hazel-nuts. 

Order of Maturity of Fruits. — It is a 
remarkable fact, apparent throughout nature, 
that the fruits mature with the seasons in the 
order best adapted to the wants of man, their 
qualities and abundance meeting his successive 
requirements. The spring presents us with the 
first refreshing fruit, the strawberry. In sum- 
mer we have in great abundance the currant, 
cherry, peach, raspberry and gooseberry; the 
plum, prune and apricot. Autumn, with its cool 
and rough weather, ripens the juicy and nutri- 
tious pears, apples and grapes; while winter 
warms us with fatty and oily nuts, almonds and 
chestnuts. 

Necessity of Variety in Food. — The human 
system requires a great variety of fruits, and 



VARIETY IN FOOD. 113 

the natural appetite demands, at each season 
and period of life, that which health requires. 
The proper supply of carbonaceous and nitro- 
genous material is thus, through obedience to 
natural instinct, provided. Fruits and grains 
afford all the elements requisite for the form- 
ation of flesh, blood and bone, but these are 
never found here in so concentrated a form 
as in flesh. Beans and lentils also are an 
exceedingly concentrated form of food, and 
contain such an excess of nitrogenous material 
as to load the system with it to an injurious 
extent. An unperverted appetite will demand 
fruits before such food. 

A person who lias lived too exclusively 
or too long upon fruits will feel a craving 
for more solid and concentrated food. The 
teeth will demand something harder to mas- 
ticate, and the stomach and intestines will 
require the mechanical action which is peculiar 
to grain foods. By the use of both fruits and 
grains in the right proportion, the body is 
supplied with all the elements of nutrition. 
If nature required anything in addition, the 
natural appetite would demand it, but it does 
nut, though a perverted appetite may. 



114: ORIGIN OF COOKERY. 

As nature, through instinct, determines for us 
the proper quantity of food, so does it also de- 
termine the manner in which it should be 
eaten. The perfectly natural appetite requires 
no artificial preparation of food, but accepts it 
from the hand of Nature, exactly as she has 
prepared it. We eat the ripened fruits as 
they are plucked from the tree, and man, in 
a state of nature, would also relish the various 
grains without artificial preparation; as is 
indeed the case among many southern tribes, 
at present, and as doubtless was the case with 
man everywhere in his primitive condition. 

Origin of Cookery. — The practice of cook- 
ing among northern races had its origin, not 
in the necessity of warming the body by the 
heat of the food, but in the fact that less 
of juicy fruits were found in the north, and 
it seemed therefore necessary to soften the 
grain foods by cooking. The present custom 
of cooking our food seems necessary only 
because it is customary. In the existing state 
of agriculture and horticulture, it is quite pos- 
sible to provide a sufficient variety of foods 
in a natural state for the supply of all 
wants. 



VA L UE AND BULK OF FOOD. H 5 

Value of Foods. — The value of the various 
articles of food consists not, as is generally 
supposed, in their chemical constituents, but 
in a variety of other conditions, which we 
shall here mention: In the first place the 
food must contain the necessary amount of wa- 
ter to maintain the excretory processes through 
the breath, perspiration and otherwise. Fruits 
contain the most abundant supply of water, so 
that when they are eaten freely the drinking 
of water is almost entirely unnecessary, and 
the vegetarians are really justifiable when 
they say, " We drink fruit " ; and they might 
also add, " We eat water." 

Bulk JVecessa?y in Food. — An abundant 
flow of saliva is essential to complete masti- 
cation and digestion, but in order to its secre- 
tion the food should contain a certain bulk, in 
proportion to its nutritive constituents. Highly 
concentrated foods fail to exert that mechanical 
influence upon the digestive organs which is 

Dtial to their complete activity. By reliev- 
ing these organs of their proper work, as 
La the case when the food is too soft or 
of too little bulk, the system is enfeebled, just 



116 THE VITALITY OF FOOD. 

as the muscles are by a lack of proper exer- 
cise. 

The Vitality of Food. — Finally — and this 
is a point that physiologists have hitherto 
quite overlooked — the food must contain a 
certain electrical vitality. Although the real 
origin and nature of the vital force is not yet 
known, we believe that it is closely related to 
electricity ; not less so, indeed, than to light 
and heat. Electricity is abundant in all purely 
natural products, and indeed everywhere where 
a free and uninterrupted exchange of the 
influences of light, heat and air exist. It is 
less abundant in closed dwellings and sleeping- 
rooms than in the open air. An outdoor 
walk refreshes us, not only by the increased 
consumption of oxygen, but by the increased 
action of the electrical forces. The same vital- 
ity is stored up in uncooked plants and fruits, 
but is greatly impaired by all our culinary 
processes. Fruits act also through their nat- 
ural acids, their refreshing coolness, and the 
easy assimilation of their albuminous products, 
and other nourishing materials. 

By the electrical vitality of a food, we do 
not mean its nutritive worth, nor indeed any 



THE VITALITY OF FOOD. 117 

material element of it, but rather an imponder- 
able fluid, which is related to the vital and 
electrical forces of the human system. The 
organic vital force has not incorrectly been 
called the interrogation point of physiology, 
and the physiologists and chemists of the 
old school thought to maintain this force by 
supplying albuminoids to the system. The 
fact, however, is the reverse. The albuminoids 
demand rather a great expense of vitality for 
their solution and digestion. We know now, 
with great certainty, and by practical experi- 
ence, that the human system is maintained 
and strengthened by the consumption of fresh 
air, fresh water, and ripe fruits, and grains; 
but these essential means of sustenance are 
reduced from the rank of vital to merely 
nutritive substances by any treatment that, 
through heat or otherwise, destroys their natural 
vitality. Our physiologists have not hitherto 
understood this difference between the vital 
and the merely nutritive properties of food, and 
hence, as we have already pointed out, have 
rded foods merely as chemical substances. 
They have discovered and laid down, with 
wonderful exactness, the chemical elements of 



118 Q UAL1TIES OF FOOT). 

the living body, and hence of the food requisite, 
according to their views, to its maintenance; 
but we hope to show in the following pages 
that their methods, and consequently their 
dietetic conclusions, have been one-sided and 
essentially erroneous. So long as the electrical 
vitality of food is overlooked, and the bearings 
of anthropology upon the question ignored, a 
scientific system of diet must remain impos- 
sible. 

The Essential Qualities of Food. — The 
value of foods consists not in their nu- 
tritive properties alone ; but in their proper 
proportion of fluids ; in the necessary bulk, by 
which digestion is rendered possible; in the 
natural stimulation of their juices and acids; in 
the aroma by which the appetite is aroused 
and its regular recurrence promoted; in their 
chemically neutral character, which prevents 
their generating acids or forming injurious 
compounds in the stomach; in their freedom 
from those unnatural stimulants by which a 
vicious appetite is created ; in the purity which 
guards the system against corrupt humors and 
diseased conditions ; in the refreshing coolness 
which maintains the digestive organs at a proper 



INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF COOKING. 1 19 

temperature and in a vigorous condition ; in 
their perfect adaptation to the nature of the 
digestive organs, so that they may be trans- 
formed into blood without doing violence to 
any part of the system ; and, finally, in that 
electrical vitality which renders them ana- 
logous to living beings, and the absence of 
which reduces them to a condition of physi- 
cal death. These properties are united in their 
highest perfection only in uncooked fruits and 
grains as they come from the hand of Nature; 
and the unperverted appetite demands nothing 
else. 

Injurious Effects of Cooking. — Of all the 
artificial forms of treatment to which foods 
are subjected, that of cooking is the most 
universal, and therefore demands here our 
especial attention. If we rightly consider the 
influence of this process upon all the natural 
properties of a plant, we must concede that 
it is in almost every case injurious, and that 
it should be dispensed with, so far as our 
present habits of life will admit of, and with 
a view to its final and complete disuse. The 
natural fluids of the plant are, in great part, 
lost in cooking, and with them the natural 



120 INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF COOKING. 

aroma so agreeable to the senses and so 
stimulating to the appetite. The water, sup- 
plied artificially, does not possess the same 
properties as that which has been lost, and 
all the less so since it has been boiled. The 
cellular tissue of the plant loses also its vi- 
tality, and ripe uncooked fruits and grains, 
with their unbroken cellular tissue, their 
stimulating properties, their great content of 
water, sugar and acids, and their electrical 
vitality, are calculated to impart to the human 
body a rosy freshness, to the skin a beautiful 
transparency, and to the whole muscular system 
the highest vigor and elasticity. Uncooked 
fruits, especially, excite the mind to its highest 
activity. After eating them we experience an 
inclination to vigorous exercise, and also an 
increased capacity for study and all mental 
work ; while cooked food causes a feeling 01 
satiety and sluggishness. Not only do plants 
lose their vital, but, to some extent, also their 
nutritive, properties when cooked. The vege- 
table acids and oils, the latter being of es- 
pecial value in the development of the bony 
structure of the body, are, by cooking, dissi- 
pated; while the albuminoids are coagulated, 



IXJURWCS EFFECTS OF COOETXG. 121 

and thereby less easily digested, so that the 
nutritive value of the food is reduced to a 
minimum. Another injury that results from 
cooked food is that caused by the artificial 
heat. All heat excites, through expansion, an 
increased activity, but this activity is not 
normal in the case of food eaten hot. 

Again, the sensory nerves of the lips and 
the nerves of taste are weakened by hot food 
to such an extent that thev no longer serve 
as an infallible test of its quality, and hence 
articles that seem in the mouth to be palat- 
able and good may be very injurious to the 
system, botli on account of their natural prop- 
erties and their artificial heat. In a similar 
manner the sense of smell is blunted ; and not 
less injuriously does hot food act upon the teeth, 
the enamel of which is destroyed, rendering 
them unfit for their work of mastication, in 
consequence of which the food passes unpre- 
pared into the stomach. The eyes are also 
injured by the action of hot food upon the 
nerves connected with them. That condition 
of weak and watery eyes, so apparent in the 
habitual drunkard, exists in a certain decree 
with all whose systems are enervated by hot 



122 INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF COOKING. 

and stimulating foods. But the greatest harm 
from hot food is caused in the stomach it- 
self, the coats of which are irritated, reddened, 
and unnaturally contracted by the heat, so 
that they lose their vigorous activity and 
capacity for the complete performance of their 
natural functions. The blood excited by the 
heat flows in excess to the stomach, and thence 
feverishly through the body. One result of 
this is the flushed condition of the head after 
eating. Hot food also causes excess in eating, 
so that it is rather by a sense of fullness and 
oppression than by a natural satisfaction of 
the appetite that one is prompted to cease 
eating. An evidence of the weakening of the 
stomach by hot food is seen when one eats 
an apple immediately after the usual hot meal. 
Fruit thus taken lies like a stone upon the 
stomach, the enfeebled nerves being injuriously 
affected by its presence; whereas, in their 
normal condition, they are stimulated to a most 
agreeable activity by it. 

From the abuse of the organs of digestion 
result a host of diseases. A life-long weakness 
of the gastric nerves, with cramps and inflam- 
mation of the stomach, are its common fruits. 



INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF COOKING. 123 

To this cause also is attributable the almost 
universal prevalence of colds, which are the 
direct result of unnatural temperature con- 
ditions of the body. The blood artificially 
heated causes an excessive perspiration, since 
it produces an increased, but injurious, activity 
of the skin ; and upon the least change of 
temperature, the perspiration is condensed upon 
the body, and causes colds and stiffness, and 
this all the more certainly when the blood 
is impure and the tissues overloaded. From 
the same prolific cause results also the un- 
easiness and languor experienced after eating 
hot food. But the evil effect cannot be over- 
come by the usual after - dinner nap. This 
cannot replace the elements lost from our 
food, nor give the enlivening impulse expe- 
rienced after partaking of ripe fruits in their 
natural state. 

It is indeed argued that our northern climate 
requires that food should be eaten hot as one 
means of maintaining the bodily temperature; 
but if this be true of man, it must apply with 
equal force to all animals ; and since man alone 
seems to require hot food, the argument loses 
it» force. In the polar regions, the conditions 



124: INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF COOKING. 

of animal life show plainly that the natural 
process of generating heat is not by putting 
heated substances into the stomach, but by the 
normal action of the vital forces upon food 
taken in its natural state. Greater thirst is 
experienced after eating cooked than uncooked 
food, and this results both from the change 
which the food has undergone and from the 
perspiration caused by the increased heat of 
the body. The artificial solution of the food 
impairs its nutritive properties, and weakens 
the natural functions of the body by depriving 
them of their natural employment ; and this 
has been so long continued that we are now 
almost incapable of digesting uncooked grains, 
so that their enlivening and invigorating action 
is almost unknown. 

The modern kitchen has thus perverted 
the natural appetite, and enfeebled the natural 
powers. It has, also, fostered injurious cus- 
toms, and introduced articles of diet that would 
otherwise have been excluded. Only through 
its aid can the flesh of animals be rendered 
palatable. Its abolition, gradually, if not at 
once, would contribute much to restore man 
to his normal dietetic conditions, and would 



SALT AND OTHER CONDIMENTS, 125 

exclude the most injurious parts of his present 
diet. 

Salt and other Condiments. — With regard 
to the artificial seasoning of food, we need 
here to say little. All vegetarians disapprove 
of it, for the most part, though many of 
them still continue the use of common salt. 
It seems in no way to build up the body, 
and those who dispense with it altogether 
soon experience an improvement in the sense 
of taste which adds greatly to the enjoyment 
of food. Some writers have asserted that it 
is not possible to exist without salt ; that the 
want of it causes a softening of the bones. 
But they overlook the fact that all plants 
contain salt sufficient for the requirements of 
the system. Various other mineral substances, 
as phosphorus, lime, and soda, enter into the 
composition of the human body; yet we do 
Tint think it necessary to take them separately 
into the stomach. 

MUk. — Among animal products much con- 
sumed by vegetarians, milk is one of the 
most common. This, however, is not only 
entirely unnecessary, but, in many cases, pos- 
itively injurious. Water answers every purpose 



126 MILK. 

where it is necessary to add fluids to the 
food. But even if pure milk were beneficial, 
the difficulty of procuring it is to be con- 
sidered. The residents of cities seldom know 
whether the milk which they purchase is 
from healthy or unhealthy animals, or whether 
it has been adulterated. Diseases may be 
transmitted to the human system through the 
milk of an unhealthy animal, as well as to 
an infant by the milk of an unhealthy nurse. 
Tuberculous diseases are often prevalent among 
neat cattle, and to their milk might be traced 
many cases of like disease the causes of whicli 
remain unknown. It is not at all certain 
even that the boiling of milk destroys the 
germs of disease which it contains. 

If we consider the natural purpose of milk in 
the case of all animals we must concede that 
it is not designed for adults. Milk is every- 
where the natural and proper food of the 
new-born ; and when once weaned from the 
mother's breast, no animal, except man, re- 
turns to it, or to a substitute for it, in the 
form of nursing at the breast of lower animals. 
This is, in effect, what man does, but it is 
only one of the many examples of the per- 



BUTTER, CHEESE, AXD EGGS. 127 

version of his natural instincts, in justification 
of which lie pleads his supremacy over nature, 
and over the "beasts of the field," from 
which, however, he might well learn a useful 
lesson here, as elsewhere. 

flutter. Cheese, and Eggs. — What we have 
said of milk applies equally to butter and 
cheese. These cause an excess of fat in the 
system, and an offensive, slimy condition of 
the mucous secretions in the mouth and nose, 
quite apparent to those who, contrary to their 
usual habit, eat of them. Their effects are 
often apparent, also, in eruptions upon the 
skin, especially upon the face. Let a person 
thus disfigured disuse these articles, as well 
as all fat meats and grease-cooked foods, for a 
time, and if a clear complexion rewards the 
sacrifice of old appetite, there will, perhaps, 
follow still further effort, leading to a com- 
pletely normal and healthful diet. Eggs, also, 
are unnatural food. They are designed by 
nature only for the nourishment of the em- 
bryo, just as the seed is fur the nourish- 
ment of the germ within it. 

The best evidence of a proper state of the 
juices and secretions of the system is found in a 



128 BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS. 

pure and tasteless condition of the mouth. 
Impurity of the fluids is apparent in a bitter- 
ish, sour or saltish taste, and in a slimy or fatty 
character of the mucous secretions. These im- 
purities are most apparent after eating eggs, 
butter, milk, cheese, honey and pastry, and are 
often acccompanied by flatulence and eructa- 
tion ; but these latter are only nature's methods 
of expressing aversion to indigestible foods. 
Butter, which seems, to most, an indispensable 
article, is in reality very objectionable. It dis- 
turbs digestion, causes heartburn in those at all 
liable to this affection, generates an excess of 
fat, and in many persons causes a general stu- 
por of the system — the best evidence of which 
is seen in the improved condition of the mind 
when its use is for a time dispensed with. 
Milk and cheese, having the same origin, 
are of a similar nature. The nutritive value 
of all these popular articles of food is more 
than counterbalanced by the injury which 
they do. With the foods commonly eaten they 
seem necessary, but no one who is provided with 
an abundance of man's genuine food, namely, 
fruits, grains and nuts, will ever need to resort 
to them, or experience a craving for them, when 



BUTTER, CHEESE, AXD EGGS. 129 

once the system 1ms been purified from their 
effects. While it may be difficult to show, upon 
theoretical grounds, that these articles are unsuit- 
able as human food (excepting only milk for 
infants), the greater mental clearness, and the 
purity of the excretions and of the breath, when 
they are replaced by ripe fruits, is an un- 
answerable argument against them, to the 
truth of which many can testify from actual 
experience. 

The argument in favor of butter, and other 
fatty substances of an animal origin, based upon 
the necessity of supplying the system with fat- 
producing material, assumes that man is by na- 
ture carnivorous, and that the carbonaceous or 
fat-producing foods, "which he requires to gen- 
erate and sustain the proper heat of his system, 
must come from the animal kingdom. In reply 
to this we have but to refer to facts which 
cannot be denied. Fat-producing elements 
abound in the vegetable as well as in the 
animal kingdom. The solid fat of the swine is 
del ived best of all from corn and apples, and yet 
this animal is no strict vegetarian. He is pre- 
cisely what the advocates of a flesh diet claim 
that man is, namely, omnivorous. Judging from 



130 HONEY AND SUGAR. 

this standpoint, then, man should be able 
to maintain his animal heat upon corn, sweet 
apples and the other vegetable foods that give to 
the swine such an enormous superfluity of fat; 
and if, as we have endeavored to show, man is, 
in his original nature, strictly a grain and fruit 
eater, then may we all the more regard these 
foods as sufficient for him in this respect. The 
fattening quality of sweet apples is proverbial 
among farmers, whose children are especially 
noticeable for the plumpness of their forms dur- 
ing the season of this fruit. 

Nuts are especially to be recommended to 
vegetarians. They satisfy a demand of the ap- 
petite in winter, and their oily nature is apparent 
to those who cannot see the same quality in 
fruits and grains, where it nevertheless exists in 
great abundance. 

Money and Sugar. — Of other articles injuri- 
ously added to our food, honey and sugar are as 
objectionable as they are popular. Both gen- 
erate an unnatural acidity of the stomach, which 
is apparent in the disagreeable eructations which 
they cause. They blunt the nerves of taste and 
leave a prickling sensation upon the tongue. In 
addition to this, honey fills the system with 



PASTRY. TEA AXD COFFEE. 131 

tethereal oils and wax, which can in no normal 
way be appropriated. 

Pastry. — The various articles of pastry are 
also for the most part unsuitable food. They 
contain unhealthful ingredients which disturb di- 
gestion and corrupt the blood. From a natural 
diet we may well exclude them all as at the best 
superfluous. 

Tea and Coffee. — Tea and coffee are by some 
writers said to promote digestion, but this asser- 
tion only betrays an ignorance of physiological 
law. The principal action of both these drinks is 
caused by the peculiar aromatic alkaloids, thein 
and caffein, two poisonous substances which ac- 
celerate the action of the heart and abnormally 
excite the nerves; and although from long use 
their effects may be concealed, their secret in- 
fluence is continued. That such poisons cannot 
be converted into food, nor assist in digestion, 
is self-evident. Their chief action consists in 
the solution and softening of the food and ex- 
crements. They promote, therefore, not diges- 
tion, but excretion, and thus unduly hasten 
the natural processes. The same is true of 
chocolate, the claimed nutritive value of 



132 INTOXICATING DRINKS. 

which consists in its added ingredients of flour 
and other articles. 

. Intoxicating Drinks. — These are of a simi- 
lar character. The alcohol which they contain 
unnaturally enlarges the blood vessels, consumes 
the entire organism, causes a feverish heat, dis- 
turbs the action of the brain, and, taken in great 
quantities, leads to the softening of this organ 
and to the demoralization of the entire system. 
Schnapps taken to promote digestion temporarily 
excite the nerves of the stomach, and cause thus 
an excess/of blood in that organ; but the theory 
that they are really beneficial is wholly delusive. 
Flesh Foods. — We come now to consider the 
influence of flesh as food upon the bodily as well 
as upon the mental and moral life of man. In 
this we reach the vital point of the reform which 
vegetarians are striving with so much zeal and 
courage, and in such a spirit of personal self-sac- 
rifice, to inaugurate. In the use of flesh is in- 
volved the use of a great variety of not less inju- 
rious substances, such as beer, coffee, tobacco, etc.; 
and I shall now undertake to show that by far the 
greater number of chronic complaints owe their 
origin to flesh-eating, and this by a simple pre- 



FLESH FOODS. 133 

sentation of the facts of observation and ex- 
perience. 

With the flesh which we consume we must 
consume also whatever living or dead substances 
are contained in it, and thus take into our systems 
in many cases the germs of disease, as in the case 
of parasites, trichinae and the like. This danger 
is all the greater since animals fattened for 
slaughter are more or less diseased, in conse- 
quence of their unnatural mode of life while 
subjected to this process. Carnivorous animals 
are not at all exposed to this danger, since they 
prey upon wild animals, which live in a natural 
state, and, besides, their own digestive organs are 
perfectly adapted to such food. Man, however, 
not only eats food for which he has no natural 
adaptation, but eats it in a more or less diseased 
condition. 

Again, all flesh being a product of nu- 
trition, it contains a certain amount of refuse 
matter in process of elimination from the 
system; and these worn-out particles, which 
are in the nature of excrement, are necessarily 
conveyed with all their impurities into the 
human Byatem when flesh is eaten. Among 
these refuse materials are several which are 



134: FLESH FOODS. 

intensely poisonous, especially creatine, an al- 
kaloid equally as injurious as strychnine, or 
as nicotine, the poisonous element of tobacco. 
Its action is similar to that of alcohol and 
tobacco. In contact with the walls of the 
digestive apparatus, it causes an unnatural 
activity of the entire vascular and nervous 
system, producing a condition similar to that 
of intoxication. In proportion as foods thus 
act, they lose their true nutritive value, for 
a pure and simple food cannot stimulate, and 
a stimulant cannot nourish. All true foods, 
as bread and fruits, exert a quieting and 
cooling influence upon the body. 

A further characteristic of flesh-foods is that 
they enrich the blood unnaturally with fibrin, 
and as a consequence produce unnatural heat, 
or, rather, inflammation. This feverish activity 
causes, again, an excessive secretion of gall, 
which, as is known, adds still more to the 
irritability of the system. We may thus fairly 
attribute the nervousness which with many 
persons increases with age to a flesh diet. 
The assertion that flesh is more easily digest- 
ed than bread and fruit is quite erroneous. 
Rice is digested in one hour, while veal requires 



DTSEA SES CA USED B Y FLESII-EA TING. 135 

from five to six hours. Leguminous plants, 
milk and good bread are digested in two hours, 
but swine's flesh requires five hours and some- 
times much longer. 

Diseases Caused by Flesh-eating. — The 
natural consequence of stimulating and excit- 
ing food is the great tendency to fevers. The 
immediate cause of fever is nervous excitement, 
induced by the effort of the system to throw 
off injurious substances which have been in- 
troduced into the circulation. The devoted 
mother, watching through the sleepless night 
over her feverish child, knows not the cause 
of its sufferings, or how to relieve it. Alas ! 
when to the disease is added the use of 
medicines, and of heating instead of cooling 
remedies. The true remedy would be found 
in a fresh- water bath and a suitable diet. 

Rheumatism and Gout have their origin 
also in a bad condition of the blood, in con- 
sequence of which abnormal matter is depos- 
ited in various parts of the system, especially 
in the joints. This process may continue for 
years unobserved, until a sudden cold brings 
on the most painful inflammation of these 
parts. 



136 CONSUMPTION. 

Consumption. — In the great cities of the 
civilized world, among populations living 
largely upon flesh, from one-third to one-half 
of all adults die of consumption. The exist- 
ence of this disease cannot be charged to any 
one cause. An unfavorable climate, impure air, 
overwork, irregular habits, and various other 
influences, combine to produce it. But it is 
always closely related to the state of the blood, 
and as this in turn is greatly influenced by the 
food, we are "justified in regarding any vicious 
system of diet as one cause of those diseased 
conditions of the body which are gradually 
developed into consumption. In this, as in 
all affections of the blood, there is formed a 
pus-like, scrofulous matter, and this, deposited 
in the lungs, causes tuberculosis. The more 
impure the blood becomes, in consequence of 
a false diet, the more rapidly do the lungs 
decay. 

The medical treatment of consumption is 
rarely successful, as it relies upon stimulation 
rather than upon proper hygienic agencies. It 
employs what are called strengthening foods 
and drinks, such as flesh, wine and beer ; but 
it is a fact easily verified that, other conditions 



cossuxPTioy. 137 

being equal, consumption is most prevalent 
where these things are most abundantly con- 
sumed. 

The constant use of flesh increases the ac- 
tion of the heart, and. thus prematurely ex- 
hausts the vital forces. With this unnatural 
increase of the animal heat there is a corre- 
sponding excitement of the animal passions, 
which is falsely regarded as courage and en- 
ergy. The urine of the flesh-eater is sour, 
and often deposits a thick sediment, the excre- 
ment is highly offensive and the evacuations 
often painful and difficult. 

The origin of so many diseases, through the 
eating of flesh, is easily explained. The im- 
purities thus introduced into the blood are de- 
posited in various parts of the body, according 
to the temperament and natural tendencies — in 
one case as tubercles in the lungs, in another 
as gouty or rheumatic deposits at the joints, 
and in others as ulcers or abscesses in the 
stomach and intestines For such affections the 
only true remedies are those that restore natu- 
ral conditions to the entire system. These 
arc light, air, water, exercise, rest, a proper 
temperature, and a suitable diet. 



138 THE SKIN. 

The Shin. — The condition of the skin has 
an important influence upon health, and in 
this connection we have to mention the use of 
soap as a means of cleanliness. This article 
is not necessary, but only injurious to the 
healthy body. Where the diet is proper the 
excretions of the skin are so pure and so 
slight that simple washing with water is all 
that is necessary for its cleanliness, softness, 
and beauty. The principal ingredient of soap 
is an animal fat combined with sethereal oils, 
corrosive lyes, and other injurious substances. 
These not only excite the skin and increase 
its sensitiveness to atmospheric changes, but 
actually consume its outer tissues and tend 
to give it a rough and wrinkled appearance. 
These substances are, also, in consequence of 
the absorptive power of the skin, taken into 
the system, where they give rise to various 
diseased conditions. 

Where anything more than pure water is 
needed for cleansing the skin, fine sand or 
corn meal may be used and will be found 
to answer every purpose. This with the vig- 
orous use of the towel is all that is in any 
ordinary case necessary to the utmost clean- 



QUAXTITY OF FOOD. 139 

liness, and to that beauty and freshness of 
complexion for the attainment of which so 
many useless and even injurious means are 
employed. The fashionable cosmetics have of 
course no place among the natural means of 
health or beauty. They are to be classed 
only with the many other products of the 
laboratory and of the kitchen by which it is 
sought to counterfeit health or to produce by 
artifice the vigor and elevation of spirits which 
rightly result from a simple and natural mode 
of life. 

The disuse of soaps and cosmetics, and the 
replacing of them with natural means of 
cleanliness and beauty, causes a great im- 
provement in the mental as well as physical 
condition. 

Quantity of Food. — It has been falsely 
held that in proportion as the labor is severe 
the food should be taken in a more concen- 
trated form. But in reality the demands of 
the system are more for fluid than for solid 
substances. During severe labor, thirst is 
more keenly felt then hunger. This shows 
that the fluids of the body are more rapidly 
exhausted than the solids, and hence all that 



140 QUANTTTF OF FOOD. 

is requisite in case of increased labor is an 
increase in the quantity of the food ; but 
there is no real occasion for changing its 
character. 

The experience of foot soldiers and of 
travelers in mountains is that, with an abun- 
dant supply of good water, the longest marches 
can be made ; and, after such fatigue, a meal 
of fruit and bread refreshes and reinvigorates 
much sooner than one of a more concentrated 
and albuminous character. Cooked nitrogen- 
ous foods suffice, indeed, for nutrition, but not 
for enlivening and refreshing. It is a false 
principle of the modern chemical theory of nu- 
trition, that the body should be nourished with 
as little digestive labor as possible, by means 
of flesh, eggs, and other concentrated albu- 
minous foods. 

It is a significant fact in nature that the 
more nutritive a food is, as, for example, wheat, 
leguminous plants, nuts, seeds, or dried fruits, 
the harder they are and the more they require 
to be masticated and insalivated. In this Na- 
ture seems to give us an intimation that we 
should eat proportionably less of them and 
should satisfy the natural instinct for more 



CA R BONA CEO US ELEMENTS OF FOOD. 141 

juicy and vitalized fruits, in preference to the 
drv, hard, and concentrated albuminous pro- 
ducts. AVe have here, also, an indication that 
we do not require so great a quantity of 
solid nutritive matter in any form as is gen- 
erally supposed, or as is claimed in support 
of the current theories of nutrition. 

Carbonaceous Elements of Food. — Within 
the past few years the theory concerning nitro- 
genous foods has been considerably modified. 
It is now known that vigorous muscular labor 
causes a very great increase in the consump- 
tion of carbonaceous elements in the system, 
while this has not been shown to be the case 
witli regard to nitrogenous elements. That 
carbon is largely consumed in muscular action 
we know from the following facts: 

1. That the worn-out particles of matter 
in the system are conveyed back into the 
blood, chiefly through the muscles. 

2. That this effete matter contains a large 
proportion of carbonic acid, as is seen in the 
more venous condition of blood taken from 
a muscle when in action. 

3. That during muscular action a consid- 
erably increased amount of carbonic acid is 



142 CARBONACEOUS ELEMENTS OF FOOD. 

exhaled. From these facts it is plain that the 
body is sustained during physical labor more 
largely by the consumption of carbonaceous 
than of nitrogenous foods. Although the 
muscles themselves consist principally of nitro- 
gen-bearing albuminous products, yet in their 
action they consume carbonaceous matter great- 
ly in excess of albuminous. In this they may 
be compared to a furnace which though con- 
sisting of iron does not largely consume this 
material, but which is fed by the carbonaceous 
coal and wood which is supplied to it. If the 
exhaustion and rebuilding of the muscular tis- 
sues, through the supply and elimination of 
nitrogenous substances, were as great as is gen- 
erally believed, or as might be inferred, from 
the great consumption of nitrogenous foods, 
there would result great exhaustion and weak- 
ness in these tissues. They could not have 
that firmness and strength that results from 
retaining their elements longer and being more 
slowly exhausted and renewed. 

In these facts we find an explanation of 
the difference between plant and flesh eating 
animals. The former are much more endur- 
ing, and capable of steady and protracted 



CA RBOXA CEO US ELEMESTS OF FOOD. 143 

labor, because their food contains a very large 
proportion of carbonaceous elements. The 
Carnivora, on the other hand, although having 
powerful muscles, are far less enduring. The 
case is similar with man. The excessive sup- 
ply of nitrogenous elements through the eat- 
ing of flesh, or even of the more nitrogenous 
vegetable foods, as beans and other legumin- 
ous plants, is not calculated to increase the 
strength. 

How often do we see a person, who, ac- 
cording to his own opinion and that of his 
physician, lives well and upon " strengthening 
foods " and drinks, yet who, with wan and 
pale face, and bloated abdomen, goes shiver- 
ing and groaning through life. In such a 
ease relief can only be obtained by the aban- 
donment of this " strengthening food," falsely 
so-called. Fourteen days of a fruit and bread 
diet would reduce the thick paunch and give 
more color to the cheeks and less color to the 
nose, thus showing that the sufferer had 
chosen the true road to health. That fruit 
and grain foods afford every element of nu- 
trition is apparent, not only from the instinct 
that demands them, and from the health and 



144 PER CENT A GE OF ELEMENTS. 

satisfaction which they give, but from the 
chemical analysis also, as presented in the fol- 
lowing chemical elements of food : 
Percentage of Elements. 

"Wheat: starch, 65; fat, 1.42; albuminoids, 
15.20. 

Apples : sugar, 8 ; pectin, 5.5 ; pectose, 1.2 ; 
albumen, 0.39. 

Pears: sugar, 11.5; dextrin, 2.07; albumen, 
0.21. 

Cherries: sugar, 13.11; pectin and dextrin, 
2.69; albumen, 0.9. 

Strawberries : sugar, 7.57 ; pectin, 0.11 ; pec- 
tose, 0.9; albumen, 0.35. 

Gooseberries : sugar, 6.2 ; dextrin, 0.7 ; albu- 
men, 0.8. 

Currants : sugar, 6.4 ; pectin, 0.1 ; pectose, 
0.9 ; albumen, 0.5. 

Raspberries : sugar, 4.7 ; pectin, 1.7 ; pec- 
tose, 0.5 ; albumen, 0.5. 

Huckleberries: sugar, 5.7; pectin, 0.5; pec- 
tose, 0.2 ; albumen, 0.7. 

Apricots : sugar, 11.6 ; dextrin, 4.8 ; albu- 
men, 0.9. 

Peaches : sugar, Q.Q; pectin, 6 ; Albumen, 
0.3. 



PER CENT A GE E EL EM EN TS. 145 

Plums : sugar, 6.7 ; pectin, 6.4 ; pectose, 
0.4 ; albumen, 0.3. 

Figs: sugar, 62.5; dextrin, 5.2; fat, 0.9. 

Dates : sugar, 58 ; pectin, 1.3 ; dextrin, 
3.4. 

Grapes: sugar, 13.7; pectin, 0.5; albumen' 
0.8. 

These figures are, of course, only approxi- 
mately correct, varying with character of the 
soil, climate, and mode of culture. The right 
use of these and other fruits, in accordance 
with the requirements of an unperverted ap- 
petite, will be found to yield nearly all the 
necessary elements of nutrition, both nitrogenous 
and carbonaceous, and to largely replace the 
daily waste of solid matter in the system, 
amounting to about eighteen ounces. 

Such nutrition, when all other conditions 
of health are observed, is perfect and genuine. 
It gives a pure, rich and fresh blood, which 
warms, without exciting by excessive heat; and 
since the temperature of the body is mod- 
erate, it is less sensitive to outside heat and 
cold, and less liable to be affected by conta- 
•. A quiet and regular jmlse of 
about sixty beat.-, per minute indicates a mod- 



146 OBSTACLES. 

erate waste of tissue, and promises in con- 
sequence a longer life. The foods that 
nature in its purity affords give to the in- 
ternal organism its highest perfection, and to 
the muscles the greatest strength and power 
of endurance. The step becomes elastic, the 
form erect, the voice clear, and the whole 
appearance beautiful. The mind, too, is en- 
livened, the emotions purified, and the whole 
moral nature brought into harmony with 
Nature and her eternal truths. A true diet 
is thus the basis of moral as well as physical 
health, and from it as a starting-point must 
the race proceed to the realization of its 
ideal perfection. The greatest obstacle to this 
realization exists not in the world without. 
The foolish seek it there and charge their 
faults upon the order of Nature, of which 
they know so little. But its real existence 
is within us. It is uncontrolled appetite with 
the passions that it engenders. This is our 
great enemy; this the fiend that holds off the 
millennium. To subdue this cunning tempter 
that ever offers us unnatural food and to 
restore the appetite to that normal state in 
which only the good is desired, is to return 



IDEALS. 147 

again to the paradise from which the lust 
of forbidden fruit lias driven the race. 

It is true indeed that this ideal cannot at 
once be realized by those who have inherited 
perverted tastes, and who up to mature life 
have indulged them ; but we may keep a high 
ideal before us and advance toward it, and 
especially may we keep our children, from 
birth, in the right way; nay, more, we may so 
live that they shall enter upon life under more 
favorable conditions of organization than we 
did, and, beginning thus, may have scarce a 
thought but to obey their natural instincts; for 
these with the rightly born are pure and 
simple, demanding only such nourishment as 
is exactly suited to the maintenance of the 
body and mind in their highest condition. It 
been our purpose thus far to show that 
this natural diet is found only in the various 
grain and fruit products, which flourish in all 
regions of the earth in which man can exist in 
a -rate admitting of development. If a dwarf- 
ish race, driven to the polar region, is com- 
pelled to subsist upon such animal flesh as 
it can secure, there is in this no justification 
of such a diet for those whose lot is cast in 



148 RE A L NA TURE OF DTSEA SE. 

lands abounding in nutritious grains and de- 
licious fruits. 

The Heal Nature of Disease. — It is in 
the nature of every animal to seek to throw off 
whatever foreign substance may have been 
imposed upon it contrary to its natural require- 
ments. But so long as only those elements 
of food, air, and water which it requires are 
conveyed to the body, the generation of dis- 
eased conditions is impossible. But as soon 
as any of the various unnatural foods or means 
of excitement which have been named are sup- 
plied to the system, not only the possibility, 
but the active cause, of disease exists. Imme- 
diately after taking alcoholic drinks there is a 
sense of intoxication, after tea or coffee an un- 
natural heat, and so on. When the senses are 
in good condition and the nerves sound, the 
action of every kind of food or drink upon 
the system may be detected by the sensations 
which they cause. Every enervating, exciting, 
intoxicating, heating, or other like action of a 
food or drink, affords unquestionable evidence 
that some disease-producing element has been 
introduced. The effort of the body to eliminate 
such materials is erroneously called disease. 



BE A L HA TUBS OF DISEASE. 149 

In troth, however, the disease precedes all ex- 
ternal manifestations, and the crisis called dis- 
ease is simply the phenomena which accompanies 
the final effort at elimination, and the conse- 
quent restoration of normal conditions. 

In this light it is apparent how false have 
been the theories which have sought to sup- 
press this eliminating process by medicines, 
instead of removing its cause by prophylactic 
moans — that is, by establishing normal and 
healthful conditions. The introduction of im- 
proper elements into the system is, in the 
view here taken, the real cause of disease, and 
it is no exaggeration to assert that in a hun- 
dred cases of disease, over ninety will be found 
to originate in the consumption of improper 
foods. When the entire body is saturated with 
impurities, the slightest cause may suffice to 
precipitate an inflammatory crisis. It is 
fortunate when such action takes place upon 
the skin, thus sparing the more vital organs, 
the lungs, stomach, etc. When these are 
attacked the remedial action is often delayed 
for years, and can only be perfected upon the 
simplest diet. A chronic affection may thus 



150 RE A L NA TURE F DISEA SE. 

require even ten years for its complete devel- 
opment. 

One of the most frequent causes of a crisis 
is that of taking cold. This consists essentially 
in a suppression of the excretions of the skin, 
leading to various rheumatic and gouty affec- 
tions of an acute or chronic character. 

In a similar manner as by taking cold the 
crisis may be precipitated by a sudden shock 
or by pressure. A pressure upon any part 
of the body causes an increased circulation of 
blood in that part, and hence an increased 
secretion of impure matter, resulting, when 
pus is formed, in an eruption upon the skin, 
and this is nothing else than the act of na- 
ture in providing a channel for the escape of 
the offensive material. This remedial action 
is apparent after vaccination for smallpox, and 
sometimes also after the first eating of flesh 
or fat, through eruptions upon the head and 
hands, through sores or abscesses in the stom- 
ach or upon the skin, through sties upon the 
eyes, pimples upon the face, mouth, and other 
parts of the body, and in various other ways. 
In like manner do other poisonous or dis- 
eased materials act upon the system. The 



GREA TVAL UE OF A PPLES. 151 

continuous use of beer and wine tends espe- 
cially to produce hemorrhoids. Tea and coffee 
often causes affections of the heart, as, for 
instance, a hardening or deterioration of its 
substance. Tobacco and spices cause intes- 
tinal ulcers or inflammation of the stomach 
or of the mucus membrane of the intestines. 
The exact manner in which impurities are 
eliminated from the system depends upon the 
habits of life. A body which exercises freely 
in the open air excretes these foreign elements 
in a more natural way — through the skin, the 
kidneys, and the intestines ; while the affec- 
tions to which we have referred appear oftener 
with persons of a sedentary habit. From the 
above considerations, based upon experience 
and scientific observations, we derive the fol- 
lowing physiological law of dietetics; namely: 
Every artificial change of the natural food, 
every unnatural method of nutrition, and every 
artificial drink, leads to some diseased condi- 
tion of the system. 

Great Value of Apples, — Of all fruits the 
apple takes the chief rank. One of its great- 
est advantages is its almost universal adapta- 
tion to all climates. It requires, also, no espe. 



152 OREA T VALUE OF APPLES. 

cially good soil, and in unfavorable weather 
yields a proportion ably larger return for the 
attention bestowed upon it than any other 
fruit. Another great advantage of the apple 
is the ease with which it is preserved ; in- 
deed, in our Northern climate, it is almost 
the only fruit that can be kept throughout 
the winter. Of all fruits, too, it is the most 
nutritious, being the richest of all in sugar 
and albumen. 

Apples should be stored in a dry and 
well-ventilated room, to which the sunlight is 
also admitted, and should be placed in layers, 
as loosely together as possible. It is also 
well to cover them with fine-cut straw. Where 
light is excluded, the air becomes impure, and 
the fruit, in consequence, is injured. By the 
careful observation of these suggestions, ap- 
ples may be well preserved until the reap- 
pearance of berries and cherries in the spring; 
and this is, indeed, an important consideration 
with those who make fruits their leading arti- 
cles of diet. The firmness and consistency 
of apples also enables them to be transported 
with less injury than most other fruits. With 
a few apples in the pocket one may make a 



GR EA T VALUE OF A PrL ES. 153 

considerable journey, and no food is more suit- 
able for excursions upon foot. 

The juciest apples are the most digestible, 
but the mealy sorts are nevertheless to be 
preferred, since they are more nutritious and 
more fully answer all the above-mentioned 
requirements. A good apple is digested in 
about one hour and a half, and, with wheat, 
constitutes the best possible food, and forms 
the most excellent bodily tissue. Rightly, 
then, is the apple regarded by vegetarians as 
the noblest of all foods. Its nutritive value 
is unquestionable. It does not, indeed, con- 
tain as high a percentage of the chemical 
elements of nutrition as wheat, but it sup- 
plies what the wheat lacks, and herein lies 
its greatest value. As wheat is the chief of 
grains, so is the apple the chief of fruits. 

The most important elements found in the 
apple, and, indeed, also, in greater or less pro- 
portion, in all other fruits, are as follows : 
Sugar, malic acid, tannic acid, albumen, gluten, 
pectin, fibrin, starch, traces of free salts, and 
water, which latter constitutes three-fourths of 
tin- entire bulk. The skin, seeds, vegetable 
fiber and gluten constitute the solid parts. 



1 54: GREA T VALUE OF APPLES. 

The fibrin is, indeed, not completely digestible, 
but when the fruit is fully ripe it passes into 
a soluble condition. The specific weight of 
the apple is about .8 — that is, considerably less 
than water — and there are about 15 per cent, 
of solids. The specific gravity of the solids 
when dry is 1.47. 

The part of the apple nearest the skin 
has a finer and more aromatic taste and smell 
than the part immediately surrounding the 
core, which has often a more watery taste, and 
has also a less specific gravity, than the outer por- 
tion. The more solid apples, as the russet and 
Borsdorf varieties, are the most palatable and 
nutritious. While ripening, the fruit gives off 
carbon in the form of carbonic acid, and while 
it remains upon the tree it increases in solid- 
ity, since there is a constant flow of sap to 
it, and the fibrin increases, but the conditions 
are different where fruit ripens after it is 
plucked. In this case the proportion of fibrin 
and of water is less, while that of sugar is 
greater, so that such fruit is sweeter, but loses 
in freshness and fragrance. 

-The apple has not only the greatest num- 
ber of varieties of all fruits — over twelve 



GRKA T VA L US OF A PPLES. 155 

hundred — but it is also the most widely dif- 
fused over the earth. It accompanies man 
everywhere except to the extreme polar region, 
nevertheless its true worth is seldom appre- 
ciated. In the country, apples and other fruits 
often constitute the almost exclusive food of 
children, but the inhabitants of cities often 
complain that they cannot relish them: that 
they cause flatulence, and that after eating 
much of them they observe a loss of physical 
strength. But all these symptoms only in- 
dicate a weakened or diseased stomach. In 
most cases it is warm food and stimulating 
drinks that have thus impaired the natural 
capacity for the digestion of fruits. In those 
families where much fruit is eaten, especially 
apples, the children, and indeed all who thus 
live, are distinguished by their healthy appear- 
ance, red cheeks, and cheerful temper; while 
those who eat little fruit, and whose food is 
that of our fashionable tables, are often quite 
the reverse in appearance and disposition. Al- 
though the nutritious qualities of apples differ 
somewhat witli different varieties, they are all 
alike in their refreshing and enlivening qual- 
ities. 



156 GREA T VALUE OF APPLES. 

According to the well-known experiments 
of Dr. Beaumont with Alexis St. Martin, and 
from the actual experience of others, a ripe 
apple is digested by a healthy stomach .in 
from one to one and a half hours. It does 
not, however, follow from this that after 
the lapse of this time it is necessary to eat 
again, but only that within this time the food 
passes into the form of blood and begins to 
nourish the body. 

One experiences after eating apples rather 
an increase of muscular strength and capacity 
for work, as well as an elevation of spirits 
which, under a mixed diet ; is often sup- 
planted by feverish symptoms. Even after 
intentionally eating an excess of apples I 
have felt no disagreeable sensations. 

Of the apples that grow upon a single 
tree the largest are the best. The color, as 
is known, is the evidence of ripeness, and 
the deeper the color of an apple the riper 
it is. -Red apples should be very dark; the 
lighter sorts should have a soft, yellow tint; 
green apples have usually reddish spots when 
completely ripe. If a person has not been 
accustomed to eating apples, or cannot relish 



GREA T V. 1 1 WE OF A PPLES. 157 

tlicm, lie should begin moderately, taking 
only a morsel at first, and increasing gradu- 
ally from day to day, until he can, without 
inconvenience, make an entire meal of them. 
Such a process may be called a gymnastic 
culture of the stomach. It is essential that 
apples should be well masticated and insali- 
vated. Apples eaten without proper mastica- 
tion not only fail to nourish, but cause dis- 
turbances, belching, diarrhea, etc. The apple 
should enter the stomach in the form of a 
completely masticated and insalivated pulp. 
Digestion then immediately commences. But 
apples should not be eaten as a dessert. 
They differ too widely in their nature from 
other food, and when so eaten are apt to 
cause flatulence or rambling in the stomach. 
It is best to make each meal of not more 
than two articles, and for this purpose apples 
and wheat arc the best, the latter being eaten 
in the form of brown bread. 

The objection is often made to a fruit diet 
that it causes an overfilled and uncomfortable 
feeling in the Stomach, without the real satis- 
faction of the appetite. But this, as already 
mentioned, results from the previous bad con- 



158 GREA T VALUE OF A PPLES. 

dition of the stomach, not from the quality 
of the fruit food. Look at the usual mode 
of life of the factory laborer. He spends the 
entire day in impure air and subsists upon a 
diet of coffee, bad bread, beer or Schnapps, 
potatoes and bad meat. It is no wonder, then, 
that such a spoiled stomach cannot endure a 
fresh apple. Where the stomach has long been 
accustomed to a flesh diet, it may be necessary 
to introduce the fruit diet gradually, for other- 
wise the weakened organs are not in a condition 
to digest it properly. If fruit causes diarrhea, 
nausea, or other unfavorable symptoms, it is 
an evidence of a previously diseased condi- 
tion of the system, the fruit being, not a cause 
of disease, but rather a means of bringing the 
disease out, and opening the way to a cure. 
What has been said of the apple is not 
equally applicable to pears, which require 
greater care and a warmer climate for their per- 
fect development. There are many coarse, 
woody varieties of pears, which are not to be 
recommended, and which are usually eaten 
cooked; but this is objectionable, since the real 
value is not thereby increased. It is also more 



STOSE FRUITS AXD HERMES. 159 

difficult to preserve pears than apples, and this 
gives to the latter a decided advantage. 

Stone Fruits and Berries. — These are ad- 
mirable articles of food. We have plums, 
prunes, peaches, apricots, gooseberries, currants, 
strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. 
These are of themselves sufficient to cure 
many diseases and to restore tiie system to 
its normal condition. A person suffering with 
fever often feels an intense desire for juicy 
fruits or berries, and with them cools the 
blood and calms the heated brain. The re- 
freshing and life-giving juice of the fruit 
enters the blood, and passes as a messenger of 
health throughout the system. The severest 
cases of chronic disease may often be perma- 
nently cured by a fruit diet. Hemorrhoids, 
rheumatism, gout, scorbutus, scrofula, and con- 
sumption, all of which have their origin chiefly 
in a fatty and diseased condition of the blood, 
are greatly relieved by this method of treat- 
ment. The ancients understood this subject, 
and banished lepers to the forest, where they 
were obliged to remain, until by a continuous 
diet of berries the blood was purified, and the 
disease thus removed. 



160 THE STR A WBERR Y A ND GRA PE. 

The Strawberry. — Oh, thou modest yet beau- 
tiful strawberry ! Like the violet, thou bloomest 
in secret. In thee lies concealed a joyous life, 
which thou art able to impart to man, and 
which he so much needs; but proudly and 
indifferently he passes thee by in thy humble 
retreat, seeking strength and health rather in 
the carcass of an ox — such is the folly of 
man. 

The Grape. — If the apple is the king of 
fruits, the grape, the aristocrat of the garden, 
may well be called the queen. It nourishes 
only upon a good soil and in a warm or tem- 
perate climate, and is therefore attractive on 
account of its rarity, as well as its beauty and 
excellence. Its beneficial influence upon health 
is well known, and hence the so-called "grape 
cure ;" but not only in sickness, but at all 
times, it is a most excellent food. The ma- 
jority of people, we regret to say, prefer not 
to " take their wine in the form of pills." 
Father ISToah is described as the first one who 
employed the grape, after it had passed into 
decay, as a means of intoxication. This is, 
indeed, a great perversion of its proper use 



CHA RA CTER A S A FFECTED B V STIMULANTS. 161 

and an evidence of the condition of human 
society. 

Character as Affected by Stimulants. — 
The drinking habits of a people are an im- 
portant indication of their character and de- 
gree of culture. Wine-drinking people are 
excitable and visionary — passionate in hate and 
in love, but without enduring energy. Beer- 
drinking people are lymphatic — slow to act 
and slow to think. Schnapps are the worst 
of all drinks. They eat into the stomach like 
a corroding ulcer, and destroy the life of a 
people. A nation given to the free drinking 
of Schnapps is incapable of any great intellect- 
ual achievement. The number of popular 
drinks is legion, and all, according to their 
character, exert a marked influence on the 
mental and physical, as also upon the moral 
and political, condition of a race. The in- 
fluence of narcotics is not less marked than 
that of drinks. Tobacco, when chewed, has 
a brutalizing tendency ; taken in the form of 
Bnuff it leads to uneleanliness of habit; and 
when smoked, to a phlegmatic condition of 
body and mind. Opium is still more power- 
ful in its effect. t It not only intoxicates tern- 



162 TEE EUCKLEBERR T. 

porarily, but permanently lowers the entire 
character of those who use it. With regard 
to water - drinkers, we find excesses among 
them also. There are those who pour water, 
as others do beer, by the quart, into the stom- 
ach. But we may disregard the excessive water- 
drinkers as a class, and only remark that those 
who have lived to be centenarians have, as a 
rule, avoided narcotics and spirituous liquors. 
It is easy to see how very beneficial and 
healthful in its moral and political influence 
would be the entire disuse of all artificial 
drinks and narcotics. The preparation of in- 
toxicating drinks from the grape exercises a 
directly impoverishing influence upon the wine- 
producing countries, as recent statistics show 
with great certainty. This is Nature's revenge 
for the violation of her laws. More agree- 
able and refreshing than any intoxicating drink 
are the juices of acid fruits, to which water 
has been added 3 and their enjoyment leaves no 
sting behind. 

The Huckleberry. — Of berries there now 
remains especially worthy of commendation 
only the huckleberry. No more delightful 
breakfast can be iin alined than one of huckle- 



GRATS FOODS. 163 

berries and bread. The physiological action 
of all berries is essentially the same — purifying, 
opening, refreshing and strengthening. 

Grain Foods. — There can be no donbfc 
that the various grains, as well as fruits, were 
originally eaten by man in their natural and 
uncooked state. Even as late as the time 
of the Roman republic, the baking or other 
cooking of grain was regarded as injurious. 
"VThen the grains are first broken, but not 
finely ground, they may be eaten in this way 
with fruit, if one gradually accustom him- 
self to it. Let it not be said that this is 
going too far, for in the recognition and ap- 
plication of truth we cannot go too far ; rather 
have those gone too far who have deviated 
from this method. 

Pure cracked wheat is very nourishing. 
The difference between it and the usual bread 
is always considerable. The latter is only 
nourishing, but not at the same time enliv- 
ening — that is to say, it answers the place 
of nutrition, but does not increase the elec- 
trical vitality. The bread consumes in its 
digestion the power which it itself supplies, 
while the wheat not only nourishes, but, 



164 RIGHT CULTURE OF WHEAT. 

like fresh fruit, increases the vital strength. 
As all fruits by the cooking process, so 
does wheat by baking, lose a portion of 
nutritive value, since the changed condition 
of the cells is united with a chemical change 
in the albuminous molecules. The correctness 
of this assertion is best substantiated by ex- 
periment. Fresh kernels of grain, eaten raw, 
and being only well husked, are exceedingly 
palatable and healthful. ^Nevertheless, the per- 
verted mouth, taste, and stomach are not gener- 
ally capable of taking raw grain foods — and 
this indeed is not necessary, since the man- 
ner of making coarse flour bread is at least 
not injurious to the grain. 

Right Culture of Wheat. — If wheat is to 
maintain its full nutritive value, especial at- 
tention must be given to the manner of its 
culture. A good fertile soil, a good manure 
from which crude animal substances are ex- 
cluded, and in general an intelligent mode 
of culture, are necessary. The kernels of 
grain, quite dry, should be shaken in a 
seive to free them from dust, and then 
the imperfect grains should be removed, and 
the choicest only ground. The bran is an im- 



A XA L YSIS OF WHEA T. 165 

portant part of tlio grain and should not be 
separated from it. When removed there is 
also a loss of gluten, which adheres to it. 
The natural office of the peculiar tissue of 
the bran is the promotion of the otherwise 
weak peristaltic action of the stomach and 
intestines, by which means digestion and a 
normal evacuation of the bowels is promoted. 
Over fourteen per cent, of the gluten adheres 
to the bran.* 

Analysis of Wheat. — The external layers 
of wheat contain of oily matter, 1.42 per 
cent.; of phosphate of lime, .16 per cent.; 
which latter is an indispensable element of 
the bony tissue. An analysis of the whole grain 
shows the following constituents : Starch, over 
65 per cent. — of which, however, about 5 
per cent, is transformed into gum and sugar; 
gluten, 14r per cent.; phosphate of lime, .16 
per cent.; fat, 1.12 per cent.; woody fiber, 8 
per cent.; mineral matter, 1 per cent.; a little 

* A process of removing the outside cuticle from wheat 
without removing the gluten is now coming into use in 
this country, apparently improving the Hour. The 
Health Food Company, of New York, has given especial 
attention to this subject. — Translator, 



166 BREAD. 

common salt, and from 10 to 12 per cent, 
of water. The nutritive elements of wheat 
are thus very rich and abundant, and since it 
may, in case of need, be eaten in its nat- 
ural state, unground and uncooked, we may 
well say that " every kernel is a loaf" 

Bread. — Bread made of the unbolted wheat 
flour is greatly superior to that made from 
the superfine, and when properly baked re- 
tains its nutritious properties for a longer 
time. Since the bran requires more thorough 
mastication and insalivation, it exerts a stim- 
ulating influence on the stomach and small 
intestinal glands, increases the secretion of 
the digestive fluids, and thus promotes the 
digestion of the gluten, gum, dextrin, albu- 
men, etc. The whole wheat flour is prepared 
simply with water, thoroughly kneaded, then 
set to rise near the fire, and finally baked 
about two hours. Such bread properly made 
is, in union with fruit, the most delicious, 
healthful and nutritious of foods. It answers 
completely the purposes of nutrition. One is 
never surfeited with it. At every meal and 
at all seasons it is always the same. 



FRUIT AXD BREAD DIET. 167 

Simplicity and Beauty of the Fruit and 
Bread Diet. — AVe thus have fruit and bread 
as articles of food which do not excite or 
depress, which do not weary or effeminate, 
and w T hose influence is wholly pure and nor- 
mal. No repast can be more simple, natu- 
ral and agreeable, none more healthful and 
beneficial after vigorous labor out of doors. 
A few cherries, plums, berries, grapes and 
apples and a little bread suffice to replace the 
used-up tissue. How pure and artistic, how 
in the highest degree humanizing, is such a 
meal. It brings us into harmony with nature 
and satisfies every want. Lightness of spirit, 
gentleness of disposition and an impulse to 
labor are the result ; indeed this is the only 
food immediately after the eating of which 
we may apply ourselves to work or study 
without injury. Take, for example, a man 
who lives in the free air and in daily com- 
munion with Nature, who enjoys the bless- 
ing of willing labor, who eats of the 
juicy fruits of the garden, and drinks 
from the pure fountain, whose eye is clear 
and whose check is crimsoned by the blessed 
sunlight, and compare him with one who lives 



168 NA TURE'S TR UE BEVERA GE. 

in the foul air of some great factory and who 
subsists upon flesh and potatoes, beer and coffee. 
Look only at two such men standing as the 
representatives of two distinct systems of diet 
and of life, and say which system is to be 
preferred. 

Natures True Beverage. — The only perfect 
means of quenching thirst is water. Next to 
air it is the most essential element of life. It 
constitutes about eighty per cent, of our bodies. 
All the organs consume it, and the skin takes 
it up so eagerly that even thirst may be 
quenched by its absorption. It dissolves and 
carries away the humors of the blood, equalizes 
the circulation and causes the heart to beat 
uniformly and without excitement. Used in 
bathing, it stimulates the surface, and fortifies 
the system against colds. Water - drinkers 
have, of all men, the coolest judgment, and are 
the most alert, joyous, and enduring. High 
above all other drinks stands water, for, 

" To the days of the aged it addeth length ; 
To the might of the strong it addeth strength ; 
It freshens the heart, it brightens the sight ; 
'T is like quaffing a goblet of morning light." 

Air is Food. — As the light and heat of 



AIR IS FOOD. 169 

the sun was necessary to the development of 
organic life on the globe, so the atmosphere 
is indispensable to its continuance, for it is 
an essential means of nourishing our bodies. 
From all parts of the circulation venous blood 
flows to the heart, loaded with worn-out, effete 
tissue and carbonic acid, and is incapable longer 
of maintaining life. The heart drives this spoil- 
ed blood to the open sea of air in the lungs. 
Here, in those delicate membranes surrounding 
the air cells, it meets the oxygen, which it at 
once absorbs. It is this oxygen which changes 
the blood to a bright red color, and imparts 
to it freshness and life. From this one 
sees how important it is to have pure air. 
Nothing is better calculated to undermine the 
health than breathing an impure, poisoned 
atmosphere, yet this must occur where the sup- 
ply of fresh air is cut off. It is deeply to be 
regretted that the science of atmospheric diet- 
etics is so ignored, even by our physicians and 
men of science. How often do we see them 
holding their scientific meetings in unventilated 
ins. Sow often do their best remedies fail, 
when ;i simple and natural diet, with bathing 



1 70 FRESH AIR A T NIGHT. 

and fresh air, are alone sufficient to restore 
the sick one to health. 

Fresh Air at Night. — Every one should 
take special care every day, and at all times, 
to provide fresh air in his rooms and to 
breathe it often from that limitless sea, out- 
of-doors ; and not only must fresh air be fur- 
nished by day, but at night, also. There is 
an old and absurd superstition that night air 
is injurious ; but I can testify, from fifteen years' 
experience, that sleeping with open windows 
is not injurious. Those persons, however, 
who excite their systems with hot foods and 
drinks, which weaken the skin and cause undue 
perspiration, will, as a matter of course, have 
colds and rheumatisms if they sleep by open 
windows. Those, however, who live on fruit 
and bread will find fresh air at night most 
agreeable and healthful. It may, however, 
be necessary to accustom one's self gradually 
to it, opening the windows a little at first, and 
then more and more, as may be found pru- 
dent by experience. It is shocking to see in 
what a disgusting atmosphere whole families 
remain the entire night, constantly breathing 
over and over again the gaseous emanations 



HOW TO BREATHE. 171 

of their own bodies. It is on account of this, 
especially, that we meet so many people in our 
large cities with pale faces and sunken cheeks. 
It is, also, an indisputable fact that inflamma- 
tion of the throat may come from sleeping in 
unventilated rooms, and it is well known that 
it is best cured by fresh air and light. The 
popular expression that eating and drinking 
are the most important of the physiological 
functions is not true. More important than 
either is breathing. We may even regard fresh 
air as a plastic means of nourishment, like other 
food, from the fact that a night of sleep in a well- 
ventilated room, after a day of hard work, is so 
truly refreshing. The cause of this does 
not lie in the repose of the organs, but in 
the rebuilding of the tissues, and this could 
not take place without the oxygen, which is 
carried to all parts of the body. Six hours 
of sleep in a well-ventilated room is worth more 
than ten in an unventilated one. That so 
many become prematurely old is due to the 
fact that they do not derive sufficient electrical 
vitality from the air and from water and fruit. 
Hbw to Breathe. — It may be remarked in 
this connection that it makes a great differ- 



172 SUMMARY OF DIETETIC LA WS. 

ence how we breathe. It is hardly to be be- 
lieved that among many thousands of persons 
we find so few who use their lungs as they 
should. On account of the peculiar structure of 
the body, natural breathing should take place 
through the nose, the inhalations should be 
deep, and the chest uncramped and held up- 
upright. Many persons, however, breathe 
through the mouth. This is a serious vio- 
lation of the true law of breathing. The 
nose has its walls covered with mucus, 
which helps to separate dust and other 
impurities from the air. Then, too, the 
sense of smell warns us of any poisonous sub- 
stance that may be present. The air, too, 
is warmed in its passage through the nose. 
Breathing through the mouth may be the 
cause of various diseases, more especially of 
the teeth, throat and lungs, as has been 
shown by Mr. Catlin, in his remarkable work 
upon this subject. 

Summary of Dietetic Laws. — We may 
now enumerate the principal laws that relate 
to physiological dietetics : 

1. The food acts by virtue of its nourishing 
power and its refreshing qualities, its albumin- 



SUMMARY OF DIETETIC LA WS. 173 

ous products, its vital electricity, its salts, 
acids and oils, its water and bulk, its physio- 
logical purity, and its stimulating and solvent 
power. 

2. Every change from natural foods and 
drinks to unnatural ones leads to diseased con- 
ditions. 

3. The uninterrupted enjoyment of pure 
air and water, both of which are food, are es- 
sential conditions to the maintenance of health. 



PART III. 

DIETETIC ARGUMENT. 

We have now to consider the question of 
the practical adoption of the dietetic theories 
which have been advocated in the preceding 
pages. Are these theories better than those 
sanctioned by ages of usage, and, if so, is it 
now possible to stem the tide of popular preju- 
dice, and to make of our faith a living reality ? 
That the manner of life here proposed is, in 
truth, the best, we claim, simply upon the 
ground that it has been shown to be nat- 
ural — that is, to be in harmony with physio- 
logical law — and it only remains to present 
its practical details, and to venture some sug- 
gestions as to the most prudent methods of 
its introduction. With regard to children, 
there is no difficulty whatever in the mat- 
ter. Then 1 appetites demand most eagerly 



PRACTICAL ADAPTATION. 175 

the glorious fruits that, above all else, are 
capable of imparting to their cheeks the rosy 
blush of health. If, directly after weaning, we 
give them crushed fruit and good bread, we 
shall retain their love for a pure and nat- 
ural diet, and they will rarely desire any 
other food. After the growth of the teeth 
the child is nourished independently of the 
mother ; and the larger and stronger these 
become, the easier and more agreeable it is 
to use solid food. A desire to chew hard 
substances now takes place, and this hint from 
• nature must not be disregarded, if we would 
lay a good foundation for the future of the 
child. It is not necessary to feed it longer 
on pap, and all kinds of broth, as if it were 
still only a suckling. 

How often we may observe in children, 
and know from our own experience, that 
they set aside cooked food, in order to 
gratify a desire to devour raw fruits or 
some appetizing root. In this way they 
practice the scientific diet instinctively. Only 
on such food, united with abundance of 
fresh air and out-of-door exercise, can 
healthy, rosy-cheeked children be raised: 



176 THE BEST SEASON FOR CHANGE. 

sound in body and in mind, in understand- 
ing and in will. 

If, in the case of adults, through custom 
or want of energy, a relapse from a natural 
diet is justifiable, there is no excuse for 
accustoming children to any unnatural food. 
It must be admitted that it is more diffi- 
cult in the case of adults who have all their 
lives followed unnatural methods of living, and 
in their cases it is very necessary, for the 
first half year, of the new method, to only ex- 
clude flesh, tobacco, and intoxicating drinks. 

The Best Season for Change. — A com- 
plete change to a natural diet can, however, 
only be made in the warm season of the 
year, for then one does not miss the heat 
and excitement which have been derived 
from the customary diet. The glorious sun- 
shine fills and more than fills the place of 
a stimulating diet. Perhaps when cherries 
ripen is a more suitable season than any 
other. Both the morning and evening meal 
may be simply of cherries and bread, varied, 
as the season advances, with other fruits. 
The various grain foods in the form of pud- 
ding, with fruit sauce and without under- 



THE BEST SEASON FOR CHA XGE. 177 

ground vegetables, will make an abundant 
dinner, which may be eaten cold, even if 
cooked. The taste will soon be adapted to 
the change, and natural food only will be 
relished. Thus supported by all the enliven- 
ing influences of light and air, the whole 
system improves as if infused with a new 
life. The muddy complexion improves, the 
pimples depart, sores heal, and there is 
a pure, sweet taste in the mouth ; the nose is 
freed from mucus secretions ; and, in short, 
a new man is born. The advantages of this 
diet are so comprehensive, and the delight it 
gives is so great, that we willingly bid defi- 
ance to all those hindrances that obstruct its 
enjoyment. The first cold, wet day does not 
make us dull and heavy, for we have expe- 
rienced the blessing of living in harmony 
with nature. 

If we continue this manner of living, we 
shall scarcely feel the approach of winter, or 
shiver at the cold, as formerly. Should, how- 
ever, the mid-day meal of fruits, grains, and 
nuts fail at first to satisfy, we have only to 
be patient, for this manner of life should 
not give pain, but joy and freedom. It may, 



178 THE BEST SEASON FOR CHANGE. 

however, in such cases be well to return for 
a while at dinner to our ordinary food 
simply cooked, though there will be a loss of 
freshness, accompanied, it may be, by a feel- 
ing of satisfaction. But this comfortable feel- 
ing which one experiences after eating such 
food is inferior to the fresh, buoyant sens- 
ation after a natural meal. There is no 
cause of a relapse to the former diet but 
the want of an earnest will and energy. He 
only deserves freedom and life who gains it 
by the daily conquest of self. Without this 
victory nothing can be accomplished. 

One never feels more vigorous, or more 
agreeably aroused, than when he makes a 
breakfast, on a bitter cold winter morning, 
of bread, apples, and a glass of water. 
With what ease, indeed — even with what a de- 
lightful feeling — the external cold is borne, and 
that by virtue of an inner freshness and power 
of endurance. When one does not succeed in 
adapting himself to a diet of fruit and bread, 
the cause is not in a deficiency of nourishment, 
but rather in the fact that an apple with 
bread requires a stronger stomach than the 
more easily assimilated milk and soft bread. 



A D VA XT A GES OF FR UIT A XD ERE A D. 179 

The first requisite in such cases is to regain 
a good constitution, and to this end a grad- 
ual change is much better than a sudden 
one. It is also essential to spend several 
hours daily in the fresh out-of-door air, 
and when the transition is not made too 
abruptly, not the least difficulty will be ex- 
perienced. Even the muscular strength of 
those who do hard work will not diminish. 
In my own case I work several hours daily 
in my garden, and am perfectly satisfied with 
bread and apples. 

Great pains must be taken to have a per- 
fect bread. It must be thoroughly baked, 
neither too soft nor too hard, and capable of 
being cut into thin slices. The drinking- 
water must be clear and free from any taste 
except that which naturally belongs to it. 

Advantages of the Fruit and Bread Diet. 
The fruit and bread diet leads us to avoid 
unhealthful influences, such, for instance, as 
sitting for hours in a room saturated with the 
funics of tobacco. The sleep, also, is more 
natural when the stomach is not overloaded, 
and hence the mouth is closed and the breath- 
ing is through the nostrils, as it should be. 



180 COST OF THIS DIET. 

In the morning we nimbly spring out of our 
beds at an early hour, and take a real delight 
in the invigorating bath with its accompanying 
friction. With what joy we ascend the moun- 
tain and cast ourselves on the bosom of mother 
nature. With what a delighted vision we be- 
hold the valley, the wilderness, the blue heavens 
above. How joyously we feel ourselves aroused 
by the breath of Nature, for we know we are 
in harmony with her, and with her laws. 
Emancipated from the shackles of an unnatural 
hyperculture, we regain a freedom which the 
soul has sought for thousands of years, but 
found neither in new systems of philosophy, 
nor in new forms of goverment; neither in 
dreamed-of ideals, nor in momentary pleasures. 
Cost of this Diet. — The cost of the fruit 
and bread diet is less than any other. A 
strong man, doing hard work, may be well sup- 
ported on it for one dollar a week, and, when 
fruit is abundant and cheap, for less. What 
a difference in price from other ways of living. 
A still more striking advantage lies in the entire 
independence it gives one of time and place 
and of the whims and caprices of others. This is 
especially the case when we journey, and would 



EMANC1PA TrON OF WOMAN". 1 S 1 

hold ourselves unincumbered by all relations 
to meal-time. Fruit may be obtained almost 
everywhere, and bread may be carried with 
Blight inconvenience. 

The fruit and bread diet is in much more 
general use in Germany than many suppose; 
for, since it is the cheapest, there are in all 
great cities many workmen who are forced to 
use it. This may be observed in summer, 
when at night they may be seen coming home 
from work, eating fruit from the market. As, 
however, they eat white instead of brown bread, 
they are less benefited than they otherwise 
would be. 

Emancipation of Woman. — With the bread 
and fruit diet comes the emancipation of woman. 
She will then no longer be a slave to the 
kitchen, for it will hardly exist. The time 
which she formerly devoted to so much cooking 
she will then devote to the wise education of 
her children, to garden work, and to her own 
culture. 

Hints Concerning Eating. — There yet re- 
main a few words to be said concerning eating 
and drinking. The appetite is best controlled 
and most normal when satisfied at regular 



1 82 HINTS CONCERNING EATING. 

intervals. Many dietetic reformers eat but 
twice a day — at ten in the morning and at four 
or five in the afternoon — yet in my opinion 
three meals are preferable. If one arises in the 
morning between four and five o'clock, then 
a breakfast will be greatly enjoyed at about 
eight. Dinner, however, will be the chief meal, 
and is best eaten between twelve and one 
o'clock. 

Under the old system of diet, the day is 
distinctly divided into two halves by the mid- 
day meal, a long pause and a time of dullness 
and rest being necessary, where the food so 
surfeits the system and taxes its vital ener- 
gies; but all this has no application to the. 
bread and fruit diet, which in no way unfits 
the body for continued exertion, and thus 
each day is a unit of labor and of health. 

The best hour for the evening meal is between 
six and seven o'clock, and, if one would sleep 
sweetly and naturally, this meal should be light. 
The English custom of taking the chief meal 
between five and six o'clock in the evening is 
open to serious objections and is evidently 
unnatural. This appears from the following 
considerations: The cause of all organic life 



HINTS CONCERNING EATING. 183 

on the planet, so far as we know, is the light, 
heat, and chemical force of the sun, and all 
vegetable and animal activity depends upon 
it. -The greatest activity of the human *body 
in all its functions is in the middle of the day. 
Man's power of work increases up to this 
hour ; and since the demand for nourishment is 
greatest when the bodily and mental activity 
are at the highest point, digestion and assimi- 
lation being most perfect then, the most impor- 
tant meal should be at about this time. It 
is better to commence a meal with soft juicy 
fruits, and small bits of bread. The bread 
should not be heavy, but firm, light and good, 
so that mastication, which is a very agreeable 
process, may be complete. If the food is not 
perfectly prepared and thoroughly chewed, 
and insalivated before it is swallowed, diges- 
tion cannot be perfectly performed, and thus 
much, not only of the electrical vitality of 
the food, but also of its nourishing properties, 
is lost. A very important use of fruit is to 
restore to the tissues the fluids which have been 
L>.^t by evaporation, exhalation and excretion. 
When a knife is used for cutting fruit, it 
should be made of silver, horn, or crystal. Steel 



184 POSITION IN EA TING. 

knives impart to fruit a disagreeable taste. 
Position in Eating. — When one is not too 
weary, it is much better to take the food while 
standing or walking. This may at first thought 
seem unnatural, but in truth man is the only 
animal, or certainly the only one of the higher 
vertebrates, who habitually sits or reclines while 
eating, and there is no good reason why he 
should constitute an exception here more than 
in various other respects, which we have had 
occasion to point out. Where the food is natural, 
the method of preparing it, and the physical 
posture while eating it, may also well be na- 
tural. While eating fruit one does not experi- 
ence the drowsiness that is induced by flesh 
foods, and there is therefore much less cause 
to sit. The usual position at table somewhat 
obstructs the circulation in the chest and ab- 
domen, and this' hinders digestion when it should 
be most active. It also admits of the stomach 
being overloaded much more readily and im- 
perceptibly, the first sense of fullness being 
often experienced only upon rising. Those 
who sit at table should at least sit erect. The 
natural sensations will then more certainly 
indicate the proper quantity of food. 



SLEEP. 185 

Sleep. — In the evening there is a relaxation 
of the system, which many persons seek to 
overcome by stimulation with tea, beer, wine, 
or tobacco, but a certain diminution of strength 
in the evening is a perfectly natural result of the 
labors of the day and of the absence of light. 
To prevent this relaxation by stimulation is un- 
natural, for the most important want of na- 
ture as the hours of night come on is rest. 
We should, then, retire early, and rise again 
early in the morning. By so doing the re- 
quirements of nature are kept, and the reward 
is health. It is one of Nature's open secrets 
that we must live in harmony with her arrange- 
ments, not only as to our food, but in all 
other respects, if we would prolong our lives. 
That old couplet, 

" Early to bed and oarly to rise, 
Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise, 

is well founded in science. 

Adaptation to the Fruit and Bread Diet. 
— When one first begins the fruit and bread 
diet, it often happens that he loses in flesh, 
and 18 troubled with gases in the stomach. 
This docs not occur in perfectly healthy persons. 
In such instances, let no one be mislead by false 



186 ADAPTATION TO FRUIT AND BREAD. 

conclusions. This simply shows that the process 
of adaptation has not been perfected. Redness 
of the face, especially if it extends over the 
head and neck, is not always an evidence of 
high health ; but, rather, of an enlargement of 
the arteries in their ramifications through the 
skin, often rendering them visible. At the 
same time the skin is apt to be wrinkled and 
rough. In perfect health the tint of the skin 
is clear and beautiful, and the cheeks have 
a natural and rosy glow. The pale, faded 
complexion so common is caused by unnatural 
nourishment and insufficient seration of the blood. 
In order to guard against the paleness of face 
unjustifiably charged to a fruit a bread diet, 
it is advised that diligent exercise be taken, 
out of doors; especially in the woods, or 
by mountain climbings; and where this 
is not practicable, by work in the garden, 
or gymnastic exercises. The transition to 
this diet is more easily made when abun- 
dant exercise is taken, and the depression 
which sometimes comes from it is largely 
prevented by this means. It may be that 
at first there will be experienced a certain 
longing after fatty foods. In such cases soft 



A DA PTA TIOX TO FR UTT A ND BR EA D. 187 

bread, nuts and almonds, will give more last- 
ing satisfaction than it is possible to obtain 
from animal fat. That craving for excite- 
ment which animal food gives has its origin 
principally in deficient exercise, or a long- 
continued, one sided activity, which is to be 
counteracted by such out-door exercises as 
have been mentioned. The gastric juice 
changes somewhat with a change of food. 
Fats and flesh impair its natural qualities. 
The fibers of the stomach are weakened, 
and the digestive fluids so changed, that an 
apple is not easily dissolved. If one, however, 
makes the change gradually, and continues 
the natural food patiently, the digestive fluids 
return to their natural strength, and the walls 
of the stomach become once more accustomed 
to the presence of raw fruit, so that it is 
easily digested. The system then takes on 
flesh, and the cheeks become full and rosy, 
as they ought to be in a normal condition. 
At first one misses the stimulus of heat that 
is carried from the stomach to every part 
of the bi.dy, but I can testify from my own 
experience that if the change to a cooling diet 
is made in summer this loss of excitement 



188 Q UANT1TY OF FOOD. 

is easily and willingly borne, and after a short 
time a more agreeable and refreshing feeling 
is experienced on a fruit and bread than on a 
mixed diet. The excessive perspiration which 
is caused by hot foods, and which so weak. 
ens the system, disappears, and as soon as 
we become accustomed to the change we do 
not in the least miss the stimulus of unna- 
tural food. 

Quantity of Food. — Closely related to the 
questions we have been discussing is another 
of very great importance in the establishment 
of a scientific diet. This relates to the quantity 
of food necessary to the maintainance of perfect 
health, and here as elsewhere an unperverted 
appetite is the best guide. Especially is this 
true with those who have continued Ihe fruit 
and bread diet for a long time. Most 
people eat more than they require, and, the 
worst of it is, this excess acts injuriously by 
its quantity more than by its quality. It 
may however be said in favor of the fruit and 
bread diet, that it never acts injuriously by 
its quality, and in excess is less injurious than 
any other. An overloaded stomach causes, 
first of all, discomfort and ill-humor, while a 



CH A NGE OF DIET. 189 

joyous feeling is maintained in no way so well 
as by moderate eating. An instinctive feeling 
should always tell us when we have eaten 
enough. If we eat more, this voice of nature 
becomes silenced, and we may go on stuffing 
at the expense of health. 

Change of Diet. — Is it necessary that we 
should occasionally change our diet, as chem- 
istry claims to teach us % Evidently, not 
further than the seasons indicate, by con- 
stantly presenting to us new fruits and grains, 
unless our food is so illy adapted to our 
wants that it does not thoroughly nourish 
our bodies. In wheat, according to analy- 
sis, we have the most perfect grain food. 
But we must not forget that it is a one- 
sided view of this subject to take into ac- 
count only the amount of nourishment a 
food may contain, and leave unconsidered its 
power to impart elasticity and buoyancy of 
feeling. This latter is obtained abundantly 
from fruit, which, according to chemistry, is 
much poorer in nourishment than wheat. 

Those who would live upon the least possi- 
ble variety of food should choose apples and 
wheat. Ju these are found all the elements 



190 CHANGE OF DIET. 

necessary to the support of the body. I have 
myself lived for months at a time on fruits 
alone, and these in no great variety, and have 
upon this diet experienced no loss of strength, 
while there has been an evident increase of 
the electrical vitality of the system. If I were 
compelled to choose a single article of food 
upon which to subsist exclusively, I should at 
once select the Heine tte apple, which is pecu- 
liarly rich in nutritive elements. There are 
well-authenticated instances of persons subsist- 
ing for a long time, either from choice or ne- 
cessity, upon a single article of food. In one 
case apples constituted the almost exclusive 
food of a farmer for forty years, the health and 
strength being preserved in the highest de- 
gree. 

A certain variety of food is, however, to 
be recommended. But at a single meal va- 
riety is neither necessary, nor, to the normal 
appetite, agreeable. The fewer the number of 
dishes the sooner the appetite is satisfied, while 
too great a variety acts as an improper stim- 
ulant. It is a flagrant violation of natural law 
to indulge in course after course of wholly dif- 
ferent foods, in the manner seen at our fash- 



i 'snrpE fr uit. 191 

ionable tables. Such excesses lead only to 
gluttony and disease. 

I may mention in this connection an ex- 
isting prejudice against eating fruit and drink- 
ing water at the same meal. This feeling has 
no justification in fact, and, indeed, one of the 
best tests of a sound condition of the digestive 
organs is the ability to receive uncooked fruit 
and cold water at the same time. Only a 
weak stomach will refuse them. 

Unrijje Fruit. — In regard to eating fruit 
before it is perfectly ripe, it may be said that 
an unperverted instinct is our best guide. A 
fruit is best when it is most agreeable to a 
healthy palate. Unripe fruit contains more 
acid, and ripe fruit more sugar. An excess 
of acid is neither healthful nor agreeable. It 
is very natural that unripe fruit should cause 
congestion in weak stomachs, yet children in the 
country who have been accustomed to eating 
fruits, and whose instincts do not go far astray, 
sometimes crave unripe fruits, and are not, 
apparently, injured by them, though city chil- 
dren going to the country have to be very 
cautious in this respect. 



192 MASTICATION. 

Mastication. — " Food well chewed," says 
an old proverb, "is half digested." This is 
especially the case with fruit and bread. 
"When not well chewed and mixed with saliva 
it distresses the stomach, and its nourishing 
qualities cannot be appropriated. The muscles 
suffer, there is a loss of strength and courage, 
with paleness of the face and emaciation. A 
careful investigation will always reveal the fact 
that these appearances have their origin, not 
in the food, but in the way of taking it. Pov- 
erty of blood, common in this age, has a 
chief cause in rapid eating. Those, there- 
fore, with whom the fruit and bread diet dis- 
agrees, should not at once lay the blame to 
it, for the real cause may lie in the manner 
of eating and in imperfect insalivation, unless, 
as before stated, the stomach has previously 
been ruined, in which case it must be made 
normal by wise measures. A thorough prep- 
aration of the food in the mouth adds to its 
flavor, and gives a more immediate supply of 
nourishment. The general demand for the 
artificial stimulation of beer, wine, tobacco, tea 
and coffee, is caused partly by an overloaded 
stomach ; but when the food is well masticated 



HL\TS ON DRINKING. 193 

this craving is seldom felt. Imperfect masti- 
cation is also the frequent cause of acidity 
of the stomach. 

If hits on Drinking. — With reference to 
drinking, little can be said that the thoughtful 
man does not already know. Let one drink 
only when thirsty, regardless of the hour or 
the season of the year. Let the temperature 
of the water be such as is most natural and 
agreeable — neither too cold nor too warm. 
When overheated, but little cold water should 
be taken, on account of the injurious effects 
it may have upon the stomach, heart, lungs 
and brain. It may not so seriously injure a 
healthy person, still it is always better to rest 
a little and cool off the hands and face, after 
a march or run, before drinking. On marches 
and long walks the proper quantity of pure 
water is enlivening, and promotes endurance. 

Changes 2fust he Gradual. — When it is 
impossible to continue the fruit and bread diet 
throughout the year, or when the constitu- 
tion is Buch that this is not admissible, which 
18 rarely the case, it may at least be adopted 
to advantage during the Slimmer and autumn 
months, in order to give the system an oppor- 



194: THE EXCREMENT. 

tunity to cast out its old refuse matter, and 
accumulate fresh and healthy blood. In gen- 
eral, those with weakened constitutions are 
advised to regard the fruit and bread diet as an 
ideal, and to strive as far as possible to carry it 
out. The conditions of modern society render 
it difficult at times to live in a natural manner, 
but we may, if both the theory and the will 
are right, gradually approach the true standard. 
The Excrement. — The exceedingly offen- 
sive character of the human excrement, so 
different from that of the lower animals, 
may fairly be regarded as an indication that 
human food is not in accordance with physio^ 
logical law; and this jprima-facie evidence is 
strikingly confirmed by the fact that the ex- 
crement of persons living upon a purely veg- 
etable diet, consisting largely of fruits, is far 
less offensive than that of the same persons 
when eating flesh with its usual accompani- 
ments. Animals in a state of nature, sub- 
sisting upon their own chosen foods, are 
capable of fully digesting the nutritive ele- 
ments, leaving only an inoffensive residue, 
while the unsuitable character of human 
foods is sufficiently indicated by the horrible 



THE EXCREMENT. 195 

and disease-breeding product which they yield. 
It is not strange that fastidious writers 
on medicine, who investigate every other sub- 
ject, tarn away from the examination of so 
repulsive a material with disgust, or with 
only the slightest mention. But it is not a 
matter of indifference whether a disagreeable 
odor is given off with the breath, and whether 
the exhalations from the skin are full of bad- 
smelling substances. Nor is it a matter of 
indifference whether the excrement is foul, 
for it is only an index of what our food 
and its transformations have been. The last 
process of digestion takes place in the duo- 
denum, and leaves only a weak acid odor, 
and this should be the only smell given off 
from human excrement. This is the case 
when the diet consists of fruit and bread, 
but the slightest change from this may at 
once be observed in the feces ? If the food 
is not thoroughly masticated, a bad smell in 
the excrement is one of the results, and tins 
should teach us the importance of attending 
t'> apparently trilling matters. The subject 
treated is instructive, if not agreeable, 
and cannot be omitted from a full discussion of 



196 EVIDENCE FROM PHOTOGRAPHY. 

dietetic questions. It certainly affords direct 
evidence in favor of the iruit and bread diet. 

Evidence from Photography. — We have in 
photography an excellent means of determining 
the condition of the blood. According to its 
quality, the blood deposits more or less impure 
material in all the cellular tissues. Such de- 
posits occur also in the sebaceous glands of the 
skin, which secrete a natural fat and deposit it 
in the mucus layer between the true skin and 
epidermis. Although the color of the mucus 
layer is visible through the epidermis, its finer 
shades are not seen in this manner, yet they 
appear in the photographic negative with such 
sharpness that the slightest impurities are here 
apparent as dark specks. 

This phenomena is due to what may be 
called the photography of the invisible — that is, 
to that remarkable property of light by virtue 
of which the chemical action of color rays fall- 
ing upon the plate varies with the rapidity of 
their transmission to it. It is interesting to ob- 
serve the accuracy with which the condition of 
the skin is thus shown, varying as the shade 
upon the plate does, from the utmost delicacy 
and purity to a peculiar seive-like character — 



COMPLETE REFORM. 197 

that is, appearing as if punctured with innumer- 
able little holes ; these in the worst cases being 
irregularly united, so as to present a more or 
less ragged and unsightly appearance. After 
a person has taken milk, fat, beer, flesh, tobacco 
and other like injurious substances into the 
system, even for a little time, the negative 
exhibits this punctured appearance ; while in 
the case of those whose manner of life is 
wholly corrupt, these defects are often mag- 
nified into such blotches as are seen upon the 
face itself in skin diseases. 

Complete Reform. — It is true that those 
previously accustomed to a flesh diet, and whose 
general habits of life have also been bad, will 
find an immediate and complete change diffi- 
cult. To this there is necessary a moral as 
well as a physical element, and the change 
undertaken should therefore by no means be lim- 
ited to the single matter of food. Let a per- 
Bon convinced of tbe importance of dietetic 
reform undertake with it every other needed 
improvement. Let him rise early in the morn- 
and retire early at night. Let him devote 
the morning hours to mental culture, the mid- 
day to business or physical labor, and the 



198 COMPLETE REFORM. 

evening to innocent recreation. Let him 
breathe, both day and night, pure air, for this 
alone is the real " breath of life." Let him 
bathe in pure water, in the pure 8Gthereal ocean 
too, and in the glorious sunlight. 

In the process of change diligent out- 
door labor is especially to be recommended. 
The heat of the body being thus maintained 
in a perfectly natural manner, there is much 
less of that craving for artificial stimulants which 
is especially generated by a life of indolence 
or by laboring in the confined and impure air 
of factories. There are whole classes of work- 
men who are notorious for their injurious drink- 
ing habits, and who attribute their unnatural 
thirst to the state of the air in their over- 
crowded and ill- ventilated workshops. For 
such persons a reformation in diet would be 
scarcely possible unless that other element of 
their food, the air — for air is really food — could 
also be purified. The much vaunted "dignity 
of labor " does not exist where all the attend- 
ant conditions are physically injurious. A 
food reformation, however good in itself, is 
therefore of little significance without a com- 
plete elevation of life and character. 



COMPLETE REFORM. 199 

The objection often made to a simple diet, 
that it requires the sacrifice of appetite and of 
social pleasures, has no justification in fact, 
lie who returns to nature returns to the sweet- 
est enjoyment. The sense of taste is rendered 
much more acute by eating only of natural 
and unseasoned food, and the pleasure experi- 
enced in eating is thus greatly increased. One 
whose food is thus pure is able, for example, to 
determine from the flavor of an apple whether it 
has been grown upon a fertile or a poor soil. 
Injurious substances in food are quickly de- 
tected. Thus while the taste is keenly alive to 
agreeable sensations, it experiences no long- 
ing for those unnatural stimulants or pleasures 
which reason has rejected. To it the simple 
fruits of the garden are most delicious as they 
come from the hand of nature, while beer and 
tobacco, flesh and condiments, are disagreeable, 
and often even disgusting. It requires, therefore, 
no effort of self-control to restrain the purified 
appetite from unhealthy foods, however tempt- 
ing they may seem to others. Those who 
have, happily, learned the better way are un- 
conscious of having made any real sacrifice, 
but rather feel that both the appetite and the 



200 COMPLETE REFORM. 

means of its enjoyment have been greatly im- 
proved by the change. 

But the improvement does not stop here. 
The purification of the physical system most 
naturally leads to the improvement of the 
intellectual and moral, and thus a reform com- 
mencing with the lowest of the appetites and 
passions is carried up through all the faculties, 
and made to include the entire man. When 
thus complete there can be no thought of a 
return to a lower plane of life, or to those 
disease-producing foods that have been so wil- 
lingly rejected. Only a diseased stomach de- 
mands unhealthy food. In the adoption of 
a natural diet, the necessity of caution 
is greatest in the case of adults and of 
invalids. Young people in good health may 
make the change at once and completely, 
though it may be well to precede it with a 
day of fasting. The empty stomach will then 
the more readily accept the new food, and no 
precaution is necessary but that against over- 
eating. It does indeed sometimes happen that 
the change is attended for a little time by 
irruptions upon the skin; but this is not an 
unfavorable symptom. It is only the necessary 



COMPLETE REFORM, 201 

result of the increased vital action of tlie sys- 
tem, which removes impurities in this manner. 
No treatment is necessary in such cases further 
than that of a proper regulation of the food 
and drink : A steady continuance in a right 
course of living will result in a rare purity and 
clearness of the skin. 

A similar excretory process through the skin 
takes place often at the beginning of winter; 
the bracing atmosphere of the season causing 
increased activity of the vital forces, and the 
consequent elimination of impurities in this 
manner. This, however, is often attributed 
to a lack of nourishment, though the existence 
of these impurities is more often due to the 
excessive richness of the food. Still another 
cause of these cutaneous eruptions may exist 
in the impurities which those who try to live 
naturally are compelled to take into the system 
when their chosen food cannot be obtained. 
The delicacy of the sensations causes a rapid 
elimination of the injurious material thus 
introduced into the blood. The best treatment 
in such cases, and indeed of all affections 
of a similar nature, is by the local application 



202 COMPLETE REFORM. 

of cold-water compresses, and by increased 
attention to diet and out-door exercise. No other 
treatment is necessary in such cases. The ob- 
jections urged against natural diet are very 
numerous, and relate especially to the seeming 
aversion of the stomach to simple and unstimu- 
lating food ; yet I have known many, and es- 
pecially young people, to adopt it with enthu- 
siasm, and with complete success; and it is 
here worthy of note that those who have most 
readily adapted themselves to it, and who 
have derived the most advantage from it, have 
been persons of previous good habits, and of 
moral tendencies. There seems, indeed, to be 
necessary to it a certain simplicity and purity 
of character. In not a few cases I have learned 
that persons whose habits of life have long 
been corrupt, and especially those who have 
been sexually diseased, find it very difficult to 
exchange their stimulating diet for a simple 
and natural one. That such persons might be 
permanently cured by the change may well be 
believed, yet it is at first peculiarly uncongenial 
to their acquired tastes, their complaint being 
that cool unstimulating food "does not agree 
with the stomach." 



N A TURA L DIET. 203 

The true test of a proposed system of diet 
is, however, its adaptation to the requirements 
of those who are sound and healthy. Such 
will in no case find the food which nature 
has designed for man otherwise than agreeable 
and strengthening; and one whose system has 
been corrupted, and whose appetite has been 
perverted by evil habits, will find such foods 
agreeable just in proportion as the system is 
cleansed, and the whole life improved. Where 
an invalid has the will to adopt and adhere 
to a pure and natural diet, the adaptation to 
it will be certain, even if gradual. 

Improvement commences with the digestive 
system. The appetite becomes normal and the 
action of the bowels regular. The pulse be- 
comes less rapid, and the nervous system calm. 
Thus all the vital forces are relieved, and 
whatever impurities may exist in the system 
are eliminated by nature's own processes. 
"When the normal functions are thus restored, 
and the obstacles to their healthful activity 
removed, the cure of disease is complete, and 
the resulting condition is that of health. And 
this is all there is of a true remedial system. 
Nature alone cures. The physician lias but to 



204: CONCLUSION. 

see that no obstacles are thrown in her way, 
and that the elements which her processes re- 
quire are furnished ; and these are so simple, 
so in harmony with the natural instincts, that 
the wisdom of a child is sufficient to find and 
to use them ; for what but freedom does a 
child require in order that it may dwell in 
the sunlight, and drink at the fountain, and 
pluck the ripe fruit as its food. 

Conclusion. — The study which we have here 
made of the human system, and the facts of 
experience which have been presented, have 
led to the conclusion that fruit and grain food 
constitute the true scientific diet of man, and 
thus is answered the great question : " What 
shall we eat ? " Strange indeed it is that there 
should ever have been so much controversy re- 
garding it ; for that man's original organization 
was best adapted to this food is clear, and 
that his remote progenitors were frugivorous 
in their habits is generally conceded by phy- 
siologists; and, since the physical organization 
has not changed, it follows with certainty that 
the food properly remains the same ; for man 
is not independent of nature. He is, with all 
his faculties and capabilities, in all that re- 



coxcluswx. 205 

latcs to his race and individual development, 
but one member in the great unity of animate 
nature. The laws of organic life apply to 
him as well as to every other living creature, 
and by no arbitrary will or act of his can 
they be set aside. 

In determining these laws we are greatly 
aided by our natural instincts, the expression 
of which is found in many beautiful and poetic 
customs. The ear of wheat has ever been 
regarded as the emblem of industry, and the 
apple as the emblem of love. The artist em- 
bodies his ideal of humanity in a figure holding 
a basket of fruit and flowers. Ceres, the god- 
dess of agriculture, is represented as the tamer 
of wild passions, and as the loving mother 
who would lead her children back to simplic- 
ity and purity of life. What Ceres was in 
Roman mythology, Iduma was in the Northern 
— she was the protectress of the apple, the 
food by which the gods preserved their immor- 
tality. 

In the religions observances of the German 
people this sentiment appears in a beautiful 
form. The apples that adorn the Christmas 
tree are held to symbolize the infinite love 



206 CONCLUSION. 

of God in giving his only son for the redemp- 
tion of man. 

There is no more delightful festal day in 
the farmer's home than that which celebrates 
the gathering of the fruit, for it brings with 
it health, wealth and contentment. On this 
joyous occasion, the tables are spread with 
the choicest fruits of the season. On each 
vase lie in profusion swelling grapes, luscious 
plums and peaches, deliciously sweet pears, 
and rosy-cheeked apples. How the joyous 
flock of healthy children look with longing 
eyes on the beautiful sight. Life-renewing, 
life-preserving, is the delicious nectar which 
flows into the blood, and to the hearts of these 
pure creatures. Happy the lot of those who 
thus live in the sunlight, and breathe the air 
of the forest and the field, and gather their 
food from the soil. They alone are the true 
children of Nature. Upon their brows 
she sets her seal, and in their speaking eyes 
is revealed a harmony with all her laws. 

The following is a brief synopsis of what 
has been said in these pages: 

1. According to the results of scientific 



COXCLUSION. 207 

study, man is by nature frugivorous, and this 
is in harmony with his instincts and feelings. 
Any departure from this must prove injurious 
to the health and to the mental and moral 
nature. 

2. Climate and surroundings cannot change 
the nature of man with regard to food. 

3. The use of flesh-food has a corrupting 
influence on the body, is distasteful to the 
sensitive nature, and in causing the death of 
the animal is immoral, for the work of the 
butcher is inhuman and barbarous. 

4. There is no further necessity of contin- 
uing a flesh diet in middle Europe or America, 
as we can from our present supply of fruits, 
nuts and grains, live on bread and fruit for 
at least nine months of the year, and by pro- 
per care may extend this time to fully twelve 
months. 

5. The wise adoption of the fruit and bread 
diet would ultimately result in a great physical 
and social benefit to mankind. 

G. The only excuse for using flesh is a 
scarcity of other food. 



208 CONCLUSION. 

The scientific diet, therefore, which answers 
all the requirements of nature, being in beauti- 
ful harmony with her laws, and which I once 
more recommend to the reader is, 

Fruit and Bread. 



GEK3IAN AXD ENGLISH WORKS 
QUOTED BY THE AUTHOR. 

1. R. Yirchow. Lecture upon Foods. From the Col- 
lection of Popular Scientific Lectures, published by 
Virchow & Holzendorf, Berlin. 

2. Thomas Huxley. Man's Place in Nature. 

3. Carl Gegenbauer. Outlines of Comp. Anatomy. 

4. Ernst HaeckeL On the Origin and Descent of the 
Human Race. Two Lectures, 18G8. 

5. A. E. Brehm. Animal Life Illustrated. [Of all 
similar works, this is the most scientific and valuable.] 

G. Ernst Hseckel. Anthropogeny ; or, Ilistory of the 
Development of Man. Popular Scientific Lectures. 

7. Thomas Huxley. An Introduction to the Classifi- 
cation of Animals. 

8. Carl Vogt. Lectures upon Man: His Place in the 
History of the Earth. 

9. Charles Darwin. The Descent of Man, and Sexual 
B ection. 

10. Ernst nickel. General Outlines of Organic Mor- 
phology. 2 vols. Vol. I. Genera] Anatomy of Organ- 
isms, or Science of the Development of Organic Forms. 
Vol II. General Ilistory of the Development of Organ- 



210 WORKS Q VOTED B Y THE A UTHOR. 

11. August Sehleicher. The Darwinian Theory, and 
Philology. 

12. Moritz Wagner. The Darwinian Theory, and the 
Migration of Organisms. 

13. Thomas Huxley. Outlines of Physiology. 

14. Leonhard Baltzer. The Food of Man in its Chemi- 
cal Composition and Physiological Significance. 

15. Theodore Hahn. Handbook of Hygienic Treat- 
ment. 

16. Edward Reich. Medical Essays. 2 vols. [This 
excellent writer and physician explains the causes of 
prevalent physical and social diseases upon purely an- 
thropological principles.] 



APPENDIX. 



A LETTER FROM DR. JAMES C. JACKSON.* 
My Dear J>r. Uolbrook ; 

I am now sixty-six years old. Until I was thirty-six, 
my habits of life were such as were common to the people 
of my day and station. I knew nothing of the laws of 
life and health; I ate, drank, dressed, worked, played, 
rested, slept, and did as was the fashion of my day. 
Early in life I became ill, owing, as I now think, very 
much to errors in diet; but I did not then know, nor did 
my father, who was an old-school physician of high 
standing, know, that my ill health arose from dietetic 
errors. He contended against it from the side of admin- 
istrative medicine, but I grew worse; and before I came 
to puberty it was said by the best physicians of that time 
that I had organic disease of the heart, and could not 
live long. 

I do not know how many diseases the two hundred 
physicians 1 have had employed for me, or employed for 
myself, declared I had, each one of which tried his best 
by medicines to cure me. During the last twenty years 
of this period of my life, I have no recollection of ever 

• Dr. Jackson i*, and for many years has been, physician-in-cbief to 
"Our Home" Hygienic Institution, located at DansviUe, Livingston 
County, New York, 006 of the largest institutions of its kind in the 
United .SUtca. 



212 A LETTER FROM BR. J. C. JACKSON. 

having passed a day without taking some medicine pre- 
scribed for me by some physician. The autumn before 
I came to be thirty-six years of age, I was taken sick 
away from home, and was in the hands of a physician 
all winter, who had the good sense not to give me any 
medicine, saying, it was of no use to me, because, in his 
judgment, I could never get well. I lingered in great 
suffering until spring, when, bolstered up with pillows, 
I was carried from my friend's house to my own, never 
expecting to leave it again; when, incidentally, I heard 
of what was then called The Water Cure Treatment. 
I knew nothing about it, had no faith in it; but such 
stories were told of it as to interest me and interest my 
family and friends to investigate it; the result of which 
research was, that I went to a Hydropathic establish- 
ment for treatment. 

The physician of the institution was a graduate 
of an Allopathic medical college, believed in giving 
medicine to his patients, knew little or nothing more 
than any other physician of his day about the laws of life 
and health, and paid little attention to diet while I was 
under his care. As all of my other physicians had done 
before, he pronounced me incurable, and preferred that I 
should not remain, but consented to my earnest appeals, 
and so I spent the summer with him. 

While I lay one night upon my bed tossing with pain, 
an impression came to me that there was one thing which 
I had not tried from which I might receive benefit. The 
impression was, that I should change my manner of life, 
and it took hold of me with such force that I felt impelled 
to state it to my doctor, which I did; and while he 
thought nothing could come of it, he was willing I 
should make the experiment. So I began a revolution in 
my habits of living. I made a tabulated statement of 
my habits as far as I could call them up in order; and 
when I had gone through the whole list, I examined them 
carefully to see if my experience in the past as an in- 
valid could furnish me any light upon the subject 



A LETTER FROM DR. J. C. JACKSON. 213 

of the effort of such habits upon my health. I was 
compelled to recognize the fact that quite a large propor- 
tion of them might just as well be dispensed with as not; 
that in no way could I possibly be any worse, and I 
might be much better; and so where I thought I could 
make changes without injury, I crossed them out from 
my list, and cut down the wdiole one-half at one 
sitting. After I had done this I was surprised to see 
to what extent I had invaded those indulgences which 
were connected with my food and drink; or if not direct- 
ly, were sympathetically, related. This led me to a very 
serious thought, wherein I was forced to argue the ques- 
tion of food and its uses in its relation to hcalthand disease 
from what was to me an original standpoint. The con- 
sequence was, that during that season, I came to the con- 
clusion that if I could live, it must be through a very 
radical change in foods and drinks; that I, at least, needed 
food which teas nutritious, but non-stimulating ratHe? titan its 
site. To know, therefore, what food to use and what 
to avoid, I had but to recollect how certain articles had 
always affected me. If I ate bread and milk, I felt 
no immediate increase of strength; but if I ate largely of 
beef steak or roast beef , within ten minutes I felt very 
much strengthened. If I drank cold water, it did not seem 
to add to my available nervous vigor; but if I drank 
strong tea or coffee it did. If I ate food so concocted 
that there were in it no spices nor common salt, it af- 
fected me immediately much less in the development of 
nervous force than if I ate the same kinds of food 
4 ctly having plenty of spice or of salt in them. 
So I ran through the whole list of foods to which 
I had been accustomed, and in which I had liberally 
indulged, and drew a line of separation between those 
which furnished at length a certain amount of nutrition 
and Strength, ami those which seem to furnish an 

immediate increment of strength. The latter] discarded, 
the former I adopted and used. I knew I was assuming 
a serious responsibility in doing this, but I felt at liberty 



214 A LETTER FROM DR. J. C. JACKSON. 

to do it, because ray doctors had all given me up to die; 
and when a man has sentence passed upon him and is 
awaiting execution, he need not consider very seriously 
in what light public opinion regards his actions. 

Under the changes which I made I suffered physi- 
cally; I lost flesh, and grew feeble in physical strength ; 
nevertheless I had my compensations in a very great 
mitigation of some of my bodily maladies, and I took on 
better mental and emotional conditions. I slept better, 
could look out upon men and things through the loop, 
hole of my retreat with a more patient, philosophic, and 
less despairing eye. I found that my affection for my 
family and my interest in the general welfare of my 
fellow-men were increasing, and I said, as Nature does 
really her best in all her ministrations unto men to 
render equivalents, how do I know that in depriving 
myself of the accustomed stimulations in my food and 
drink, and so suffering loss in weight and strength 
thereby, I am not to more than make it good in gain of 
nervous energy ? There came to me an idea then which 
I have never lost sight of, that many diseases which put 
on a nervous type originate in abrasion of the nerve 
tissue and consequent depreciation of nervous power. 
So I argued that possibly the incapacity of my stomach 
to digest food, of my bowels properly to defecate their 
contents, of my heart to beat rythmically and symmetri- 
cally, of my brain to furnish my mental faculties with 
force to act profitably, might be owing to my having 
used such food and drinks as had not made my nerve 
tissue good as against the waste to which, under my 
conditions of living, it had been subjected. If this was 
so, then I needed not to die, but only needed time to 
build, and so I followed out my thought and discarded 
all flesh meats, all stimulating drinks, all stimulo-nar- 
cotic beverages, all condiments of every kind (unless 
sugar be considered a condiment), and lived for twenty- 
three years on grains, fruits and vegetables, simply 
cooked, without any deviation. I ate no flesh of animals; 



A LETTER FROM DR. J. C. JACKSON, 215 

I used no milk, nor butter, nor salt, nor spices; and 
nearly every disease which had cursed me through life, 
spoiling my childhood, embittering my young manhood, 
and ruining me for anything like earnest endeavor in 
my maturer years, passed away, and I came to be free 
from all ailments except two, both of which were 
organic — one a disease of the heart and the other a dis- 
ease of the kidneys. 

About this time an incident occurred which some- 
what changed my habits of diet for a whole year. I was 
paralyzed by an accident, and my kidneys refused to 
perform their duty. I had an accident insurance policy 
which entitled me to a stipend while I was incompetent 
to attend to business. The physician of the company, 
upon report of my incapacity being made to him, visited 
me. He found me in a very dangerous state. There 
had not been as much secretion of urine in the fortnight 
between the time of my accident and his visiting me as 
an ordinarily healthy man would make at one flow. It 
was understood that unless the kidneys could be made to 
act I must die. 

Knowing, as he did, my utter disinclination to take 
medicine, he said to me : " Having been so long without 
any stimulating food, it might be that were you to eat 
plentifully of meat for a while, the kidneys would be so 
affected as to resume their functions." I replied: "I 
have no scruples against eating meat, except on the 
ground that its use in my early life, I am satisfied, did 
me a great deal of harm. If you think it will be well 
for me to try it, I will." He said he thought it would, 
and so I tried it. The effect of a meal of mutton was 
wonderful. In less than three hours after I had eaten it 
I passed more than three pints of urine. I then went on 
eating it for three or four days, when, all at once, my 
kidneys refused to act under its use. I went back to my 
old diet for a month, eating very sparingly and very 
Simply of grains and fruits, and then tried meat again. 
It produced the same effect upon me for a few days, 



216 A LETTER FROM DR. J. C. JACKSON. 

with the same relapse. I tried it in this way for nearly 
a year, and then discontinued its use altogether. 

Just about this time I had a severe attack of dyspepsia. 
I attributed it largely to the disturbance caused in my 
sympathetic nervous system and brain by my very mod- 
erate use of meat. My family was desirous that I should 
go to Europe for my health. I was full of business, 
with large responsibilities on my hands, and I declined 
to entertain the idea. I went to bed one night, and in 
the morning I arose, told my wife I had been to Europe 
and got home again. She laughed and wanted to know 
what I meant. I said : " I have become convinced that 
I eat too frequently." I had then been eating, for 
twenty-three years or more, only twice a day. I said : 
" Now I can do better on one meal a day than I can on 
two; I can digest it better, it will tax my nervous system 
less, I shall feel better, sleep better, and be stronger.'* 
She and my children seriously objected to it, but I said, 
" Let me try it." So I had myself accurately weighed, 
and just four weeks from that day I was weighed again 
and found I had gained eight pounds. I kept on gaining 
until I went from 134 to 143^, which was within eight 
ounces of as much as I ever weighed in my life. I have 
lived since that time on what may be called an anti-flesh 
diet, once in a great while using fish, when I have been 
so' situated that I had to eat it or go without food. I 
think it will be accorded to me that I have done as much 
work, of both brain and body, as any man in my region 
of the country. For all the wealth of India I would not 
resume the dietetic habits of the first half of my life. 

Beneficial, however, as has been my strictly farina- 
ceous, fruit and vegetable food upon my physical and 
bodily health, and gratifying to me as my improvement 
in this respect has been, I count it but small compared 
with the increased intellectual and moral efficiency 
which has resulted therefrom. More than this, I declare 
that my spiritual faculties have been wonderfully ener- 
gized; that I have grown into a better, truer, and more 



A LETTER FROir DR. J. C. JACKSOX. 217 

advanced knowledge of Christ and of the wants of 
humanity. I appreciate principles and forces, motives 
and plans for the amelioration of my fellow-men vastly 
better than when I lived under the old regime. I keep 
my passions, propensities, and appetites within my own 
handling. Every quality of my nature relates itself to 
normal expression much more readily and effectually ; 
and I do most heartily commend abstinence from the 
flesh of animals as food to every human creature under 
the sun who wishes to put away from himself the lusts 
of the flesh and put on the graces of the Spirit. 

During these years I have been able, under God's 
good providence, to give back health and strength and 
hope and heart and home to very many of my fellows, 
who, like myself, had been living in the gall of bit- 
terness and the bonds of iniquity, by inducing them to 
forego substantially the use of the flesh of animals as 
their staple food. I am sure that there is a divine phi- 
losophy underlying the question how men shall eat and 
how they shall drink, and that it is very desirable to all 
who would rise to a higher plane of consciousness that 
they should do as I have tried to do — to eat and to drink 
to the glory of God. 



A CURE FOR INTEMPERANCE. 



A Paper read by Mr. diaries 0. Groom Napier, F. G 8., 
Member of the Anthropological Institute, etc. , etc. , before 
sub-Section D {Physiology) of the British Association, at 
Bristol, England. 

More than twenty years ago I read in Liebig's 
"Animal Chemistry" (translated by Gregory, page 97) 
how the use of cod-liver oil had a tendency to promote 
the disinclination for the use of wine, and how most 
people, according to Liebig, find that they can take 
wine with animal food, but not with farinaceous or 
amylaceous food. I was at that time a vegetarian, 
and felt in my own person the truth of this statement 
of Liebig, as also two members of my own family, one 
in old age, and another in middle life. They had for 
two years adopted the vegetarian diet, although brought 
up in the moderate use of alcoholic liquors, for which, 
after becoming vegetarians, they felt no inclination. I 
was induced by this seeming proof of the accuracy of 
Liebig's theory to endeavor to find whether it might not 
be valuable for the cure of intemperance. Having ap- 
plied it successfully to twenty-seven cases, I will briefly 
give the results : 

1. A military officer, 61 years old, of an aristocratic 
Scottish family, had contracted habits of intemperate 
whisky drinking while on service with his regiment in 



A CURE FOR IXTEXPERAXCE. 219 

India, but was well satisfied with himself, although a 
torment to his wife and children. His habit was to eat 
scarcely any bread, fat, or vegetables. His breakfast 
was mostly salt fish and a little bread. His dinner con- 
sisted of joint, and very little else. He consumed during 
the day from a pint to a quart of whisky, and was 
scarcely sober more than half his time. His face and 
neck were very red. By my advice his wife induced him 
to return to the oatmeal porridge breakfast on which he 
bad been brought up, and to adopt a dinner of which 
boiled haricot beans or peas formed an important ingre- 
dient. He did not like this change at first, and com- 
plained that he. could not enjoy his whisky as much as 
formerly. About this time there was a great panic 
among flesh-eaters in consequence of the cattle plague, 
and his wife became so alarmed that the whole family 
was put on a vegetarian diet. The husband grumbled 
very much at first. But his taste for whisky entirely 
disappeared, and in nine months from the time he com- 
menced, and two months from the time he became an 
entire vegetarian, he relinquished alcoholic liquors and 
has not returned to cither flesh or alcohol since. 

2. An analytical chemist of some talent, but of in- 
temperate habits, about 32 years of age, was desirous to 
be cured of his vice. I called his attention to the state- 
ment of Liebig. He said he feared that a vegetarian 
diet would not suit his constitution, and that he felt that 
he had eaten nothing unless he dined largely on flesh. 
I told him that I had suffered from the same delusion 
myself, but I was now convinced of its fallacy, and 

gged him to give the vegetarian diet a fair trial. He 
was a bachelor, and had no one to consult but himself, 
so, aftei Beveral more objections had been answered, 
he consented to give it a month's trial. He ate his first 

getarian dinner — which consisted principally of mac- 

roni — with little appetite. Next day I took him a long 
walk, which detained us three hours beyond his usual 
dinner hour, so that lie returned with such a hearty 



220 A CURE FOR INTEMPERANCE. 

appetite that he ate his maccaroni cold, being too impa- 
tient to wait until it could be warmed. From that day 
he persevered, aided by the diet, and before the end of 
six weeks he was a total abstainer. 

3. A lady of independent means, about 42 years of 
age, accustomed to live freely, eat very largely of meat, 
drink a bottle of wine daily, besides beer and brandy, 
was accused by her friends of being intemperate. Her 
sister, who had great influence over her, took her, by 
my advice, 100 miles away from home, by the seaside, 
and after long walks they sat down regularly to a vege- 
tarian dinner. In nine weeks her intemperance was so 
far cured as to be satisfied with about half a glass of 
brandy on going to bed, drinking nothing alcoholic 
during the day. 

4. A clergyman of habitually intemperate habits was 
induced to adopt vegetarianism, and was cured in about 
12 months. He was about 44 years of age. 

5. A country gentleman, after 11 months of vegetari- 
anism, was entirely cured of intemperance. 

6. A girl of 19, who from association with intem- 
perate people had been led into this vice, was cured 
in about five weeks by vegetarian diet. After two years 
she went to visit those who had first misled her, and 
returned to a flesh diet and drunkenness. From this re- 
lapse she was cured a second time by vegetarianism. 
Unfortunately she returned again to a flesh diet and 
drunkenness, but was again cured a third time. 

7. 8, 9. A man, his wife and sister, all above 40, 
'who had been addicted to intemperance for some years, 
were cured by vegetarianism within one year. 

10. A bed-ridden gentleman, slightly addicted to in- 
temperance, was entirely cured by a vegetarian diet in 
36 days. 

11. A captain in the merchant service was entirely 
cured of drunkennes in 44 days by the same means. 

12. A half-pay officer in the navy was cured of drunk- 
enness by vegetarianism in about 90 days. 



A CURE FOR INTEMPERANCE. 221 

13, 14. A clergyman and his wife, both addicted to 
intemperance, although of a secret and quiet kind, were 
cured, one in four months the other in six months. 

15, 1G, 17. Similar cases, all bachelors of intemperate 
habits, were cured within 12 months by a diet mainly 
farinaceous. 

18. A gentleman of 60, who had been addicted to in- 
temperate habits for 35 years, his outbreak averaging 
one a week. His constitution was so shattered that he 
had great difficulty in insuring his life. After an attack 
of delirium tremens which nearly ended fatally, two 
brothers, who had much influence over him, induced 
him to adopt a farinaceous diet, which cured him en- 
tirely in seven months. He was very thin at the begin- 
ning of the experiment, but at the end of the seven 
months had increased in weight 28 lbs., being then 
about the normal weight for a man of his height. 

19, 20. Two sisters, members of a family notorious 
for their intemperate habits. They were induced to 
adopt vegetarianism, and were cured in about a year. 

21. A clerk of great ability, who had lost several 
good situations on account of his intemperate habits, 
adopted vegetarianism as an experiment, and with such 
perfect succ ss that one of his old employers took him 
back at a higher salary than he had ever received before. 

22. A governess, aged about 40, who lost a good 
situation on account of her drunkenness, was cured by 
a farinaceous diet in nine weeks. 

23. 24. Both military pensioners, aged respectively 
66 and G3, who had contracted habits of intemperance in 
India. They led wretched lives on small pensions, until 
induced to adopt vegetarianism. They were cured in 
about six months. 

25, 2G, 27. Three old sailors, above 50. They were 
cured by vegetarianism in about six months. 

From these 27 cases, in which the vegetarian system 
has been within my knowledge successful, I conclude 
that it is a very valuable remedy, and worth a trial. I 



222 A CURE FOR INTEMPERANCE. 

will now give a list of articles of food which are pre- 
eminent in their antagonism to alcohol. 

1st. Maccaroni, which when boiled and flavored with 
butter is palatable and very substantial. I believe no 
person can be a drunkard who eats half a pound a day 
of maccaroni thus prepared. 

2d. Haricot beans and green dried peas and lentils 
stand next. They should be soaked for 24 hours, well 
boiled with onions, celery, or other herbs, and plenty of 
butter or oil. Rice is useful, but less important than 
maccaroni or peas and beans. The various garden vege- 
tables are helpful, but a diet mainly composed of them 
would not resist alcoholic drinking so effectually as one 
of maccaroni and farinaceous food. 

3d. Highly glutinous bread is of great use from this 
point of view ; it should not be sour, for sour bread has 
the tendency to encourage alcoholic drinking. Bread 
that is imperfectly fermented and liable to become sour 
is in very common use, and, in my opinion, greatly con- 
tributes to foster intemperance ; as also the use of meat 
of the second or third quality. The use of salted food 
tends to promote intemperance, while regular hearty 
meals of fresh, wholesome, glutinous food tend to dis- 
courage it. 

I can speak from experience as having benefited in 
health greatly by adopting a vegetarian diet, and all 
whom I have induced to adopt it have been benefited 
likewise. It has the tendency to encourage the develop- 
ment of the intellect ; to give increased capacity for 
mental labor ; and to promote longevity and economy. 
The price of meat is double what it was twenty-five 
years ago ; while the price of wheat, which varies of 
course with seasons, has not increased. Incomes and 
wages in general have risen, so that the poor man who is 
willing to live on wheaten products is better off than 
ever. He only feels the pressure when he attempts to 
live greatly on flesh, which induces a thirst for alcoholic 
liquors, for in all the cases of intemperance which I have 



A CURB FOR INTEMPERANCE, 223 

examined there is a special distaste for a farinaceous 
diet. Those who object to vegetarianism often complain 
of a want of appetite for such diet. Let sucli try seaside 
or mountain air, a good long walk fasting, or a ride on 
the top of an omnibus, and they will seldom want an 
appetite. The drunken mechanic, who when sober 
works hard, loses more time through drunkenness than 
he would in taking country walks, if such are advisable 
for his health. 

If we inquire the cause of a vegetarian being disin- 
clined to alcoholic liquors, w r e find that the carbonace- 
ous starch contained in the maccaroni, beans, or oleagin- 
ous aliment, appear to render unnecessary, and conse- 
quently repulsive, carbon in an alcoholic form. Liebig 
says " alcohol and fat oil mutually impede the secretion 
of each other through the skin and lungs." Nations liv- 
ing on a diet composed largely of starch, such as the 
rice-feeding populations of the tropical East, are less 
given to drunkenness than meat-eating populations. 
The meat-eating people of the north of France consume 
much alcohol per head — as much, if I may believe statis- 
as the inhabitants of any part of Europe. The 
bread they consume is very generally raised with vine- 
gar. One class of fermented food appears to attract 
another. I have observed that a taste for spicy condi- 
ments, butcher's meat and alcoholic liquors is associated, 
and that a taste for plain-favored vegetables, fats and 
oils is likewise associated. I have known persons in the 
habit of taking alcoholic liquors daily, when eating 
butcher's meat, who find they must give them up en- 
tirely when living on a farinaceous diet without meat — 
their aet ion under those circumstances being too irritating 
to be endured without great inconvenience — such as 
sleeplessness, burning in the hands, and headache, and 
even nausea ; and that in the same individual, whoa 
few davs before, with a meat diet, seemed to require 
several glasses of wine to prevent physical exhaustion. 



224: A CURE FOR INTEMPERANCE. 

Lastly, were the ground now occupied in growing 
barley for malting purposes devoted to growing wheat or 
oats for bread and porridge, our national wealth would 
be greatly increased. But little wheat would need to be 
brought from foreign countries at a great expenditure of 
gold ; while intemperance itself, which is the chief cause 
of pauperism and crime, may be greatly discouraged by 
the cultivation of vegetarianism. 



INDEX. 



Actions, critical, 201 

Agriculture, origin of, 103 

Air, fresh, at night, 170 

Air is food, 168 

American Indian, bloodthirstiness 
Of, 84 

Animals, placental, classification 
Of, 46 

Animals, placental peculiarities 
Of, 43 

Apes in captivity, death of, by con- 
sumption, 71 

9, the anthropoid, effects on, of 
flesh food and intoxicating 
drinks, 41 

Ape, the, blood corpuscles of, 74 

Appendix, 211 

Apples, bee! variety of, 190 

Apples, great value of, 151 

Apples. Bwe t. their fattening prop- 
9, 130 
tnent, the Anthropological. 

I, 7 

Argument, the Dietetic. Part ITT, 174 
i in <■ n t , the PhysLolOf 

II, 107 

Author, the personal experience 

Of, 100 

B. 
Beans and lentils too concen- 
trated, 1 18 
Mul poetic customs, 205 



Berries and stone fruits, 159 
Blood, similarity of, between that of 

man and animals, 39 
Bread, 166 
Butter, cheese and eggs, 127 



Carnivora, blood corpuscles of, 75 
Carnivora, the, 22 

Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, 204 
Character as affected by stimu- 
lants, 161 
Cheese, butter and eggs, 127 
Children, hard food for, 176 
Children, the appetites of, 174 
Children, weaning of, 176 
Christmas tree, apples on, 205 
Comparison between man and the 

ape, 3L 
Comparisons, anatomical, table 

Of, 63 
Conclusions 33, 204 
Consumption from flesh-eating, 136 
Cookery, origin of, 114 
Cooking, injurious effects of, 119 
Corpulency relieved by fruit, 143 



D. 
Development, transitional stages 

of, 69 
Diet, anatomical theory of, 9 
Diet, ancient zoological theory of, 10 



226 



INDEX, 



Diet, change of, 189 
Diet, change of, best season for, 176 
Diet, change of, obstacles to, 14(5 
Diet, changes of, must be grad- 
ual, 193 
Diet, chemical theory of, 8 
Diet, scientific principles of, 94 
Dietetic conclusions drawn from the 
placental peculiarities of ani- 
mals, 57 
Dietetic laws, summary of, 1 72 
Dietetics, first principles of, 16 
Digestion most vigorous at mid- 
day, 183 
Disease, nature of, 148 
Diseases from flesh-eating, 135 
Drinking, hints on, 193 
Drinks, intoxicating, bad effects 

of, 132 
Dwellers in forests, courage of, 67 

E. 

Eating, hints concerning, 181 

Eating, position in, 184 

Eating, proper hours for, 182 

Edentata, the, 22 

Eggs, butter and cheese, 127 

Embryology, evidence from, 85 

Embryo, the human, 47 

Epoch, the glacial, 99 

Epoch, the new, 101 

Every kernel a loaf , 166 

Evolution theory, the, in its applica- 
tion to dietetics, 13 

Excrement, character of, 194 

Excretory products, 110 

Excretory products in man, 110 

Excretory products in the Carniv- 
ora, 110 

Excretory products in the Herbiv- 
ora, 110 

Experience, personal, 191 

F. 
Festal day of German peasants, 206 
Flesh-eating by man, origin of, 96 
Flesh-food, its effects, 95 
Flesh-food, its influence, 132 
Flesh, more of it eaten in the city 

than in the coimtry, 85 
Food, carbonaceous, elements of, 140 
Food, its influence on the character 

of races, 95 
Food, its relations to social con- 
ditions, 83 
Food, man's, change in, following 

climatic and other changes, 97 
Food, necessity of variety in, 112 
Food, percentage of different ele- 
ments in, 144 
Food, quantity of, 139, 188 
Food, strengthening, 143 



Food, the, as indicated by organiza- 
tion, 16 

Food, uncooked, children's love 
for, 176 

Foods, bulk necessary in, 115 

Foods, carbonaceous, supply of, 113 

Foods, electrical vitality of, 116 

Foods, essential qualities of, 118 

Foods, value of, 115 

Forests, destruction of, 67 

Forest, the, man's original home, 65 

Frugivora, the. 19 

Fruit and bread diet, adaptation 
to, 1S5 

Fruit and bread diet, advantages 
of, 179 

Fruit and bread diet, cost of, 179 

Fruit and bread diet, simplicity and 
beauty of, 167 

Fruits, order of maturity of, 112 

Fruit, unripe, 191 

G. 

Germans, religious observances 

of, 205 
Germ,the human, development of, 86 
Gorilla, the, 42 
Grain foods, 163 
Grapes, 160 

H. 

Harmony between the structure of 
animals and their food, 60 

Harmony between the structure of 
man and his food, 59 

Health, improvement of, 177 

Herbivora, the, 18 

Honey and sugar injurious, 130 

How to breathe, 171 

Huckleberry, the, 162 

Huxley, Prof., vbws of, 31 



Iduma,a protectress of the apple, 205 
Industry, wheat emblematic of, 205 
Insectivora, the, 24 
Instinct and its impulses, 64 
Instinct, education of, 70 
Instinct, morals and science har- 
monize, 69 

J. 

Jackson, Dr. James C, letter 

from, 209 
Juice, the gastric, in man, 108 
Juice, the gastric, in the Carniv- 

ora, 109 



Lemuria, the submergence of, 99 
Life, embryonic, stages of, 61 
Life, simplicity and purity of, 205 



TXDEX. 



227 



M. 

Matnmnli'i, the, 17 

Man a child of nature, G4 

Man, blood corpuscles of, 74 

Man, civilized, his instinct nearly 
lost, 67 

Man, conditions of, his adaptation 
to new circumstances, 78 

Man, fetal life of, 45 

Man, frugivorous nature of, 104 

Man, bighesl culture of, 72 

Man. his adaptation to new con- 
ditions not always favorable, 76 

"Man, individual lite of, 45 

Man, life of, 45 

Man, liie of the race of, 45 

Man, Nature's provision for, 111 

Man, no change in the nature of, 74 

Man, original condition of, 73 

Man, past history of, 46 

Man, pi ic • in Nature of, 37 

Man, post-fetal life of, 45 

Man. teeth of, 26 

Man. the primitive, did not cook, 93 

Man. the primitive, wild fruits the 
diet of. 98 

Man, whit is his nature? 15 

Mastication, 192 

Men, the carnivorous, roaming, 
savage and warlike, 84 

Men, the frugivorous, light in self- 
defense, B4 

Milk not the natural food of the 
adult man, 125 



Placenta, discoidal deciduate, 52 

Placenta, non-deciduate, 48 

P 1 a c e n t a , non-deciduate, of the 

Herhivora, 50 
Placenta, the zouary dociduate, 50 
Placental forms, 51 

R. 

Reform, complete, 197 

Resemblance between the new-born 
ape and the new-born child, G2 

Rheumatism and gout from flesh- 
eating, 135 

Rocks, the record of the, 77 

Rodcntia, the, 20 

Romans in cities, enervation of, 67 

Ruminants, the, 17 

S. 

Saliva of the Carnivora, acidity 
of, 108 

Saliva, the human, alkalinity of , 107 

Salt and other condiments, 125 

Sea Carnivora, the, IS 

Skin, the, as affected by flesh-eat- 
ing, 138 

Slaughter-house, the, horrors of, 70 

Sleep, 1S5 

Stone age the, men of, and their 
food, 102 

Strawberry, the, 1G0 

Structure internal, of man and other 
animals, peculiarities of, 33 

Synopsis, 206 



N. 

Napier. Chas. O, Ciroom, on the 

cure of intemperance, 215 
Natural selection, essential prin- 
ciples of, 75 
r •, true beverage of, 168 
Nichols, I'rof., views of, 30 
Nitrogen, excess of, in food, 143 
N u t s specially commendable to 
vegetarians, 130 



Pat Bian families, early death of, 85 
Pa-try onsnitable f ood, 131 
Photography, evidence from, 196 
Phytophaga, the, or plant-eaters, 17 
Placenta, deciduate, two kinds of, 48 



Tea and coffee, bad effects of, 131 
Teeth of man and other animals 

compared, 27 
Theory, the Darwinian, its relation 

to the subject, 11 
Translator's Preface, 5 
Two or three meals a day, which? 1S2 

W. 
Wheat, analysis of, 165 
Wheat, right culture of, 164 
Woman, emancipation of, 181 
Works,German and English, quoted 
by the author, 209 



Zoophaga, the, or flesh-caters, 17 



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